


the frog in the well

by jiemae



Category: Naruto
Genre: (only for a short time), Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Geisha, Jiraiya's Sister, OC insert, Prostitution, Romance, Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy, not as angsty as the tags might be making it sound lmfao, oiran
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11300802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiemae/pseuds/jiemae
Summary: She had always wanted to see the ocean.[OC Insert; Jiraiya's Sister; SakumoxOC](The AO3 mirror to the same story on fanfiction.net//Faster updates there!)





	1. the boy at the shrine

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to check this story out on fanfiction as there might be chapters I've yet to post here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language Guide;  
> Shikomi - first stage in training to be a geisha(geiko), and it's basically being a servant to the Okiya.  
> Saisenbako - an offering box  
> Misedashi - a debut ceremony where a shikomi becomes a maiko  
> Miyako Odori - capital city dance, an annual public performance by maiko and geiko.  
> Minarai - a maiko who shadows geisha and watches performances to learn  
> Ozashiki - geiko gathering in tea houses  
> Mizuage - coming of age ceremony, once meaning the loss of virginity but now represented by the topknot being cut from the hair. A private affair.  
> Erikae - the ceremony in which the maiko becomes a geiko  
> Danna - geiko's patron/sponsor, typically a wealthy man  
> Okiya - lodging house for maiko and geiko for the duration of her nenki (contract/career as a geiko)

 

" _a frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean"_

* * *

When she was small, her brother liked to recite to her stories about loads of things, especially animals. She didn't exactly know where he learned it all himself—she never even saw him open a book—but it was food for thought when she was young and insecure.

The stories differed each time, even if at moments it sounded as if he was telling the same story. From themes to characters, to relationships and ideas. She would memorize them, and repeat the words in her head so often that it became second nature to listen and recall. She loved them.

Her favorites were the ones with the animals. It didn't matter which one—all of them had a spark of something more peculiar than the ones with humans. From foxes to deer to even koi fish. Such ordinary creatures but ones she didn't immediately understand and ones that could never easily understand her. Something about that sense of distance called; a disconnect that meant she would not have to worry so much to impress them.

Instead, in their fantastic stories, they were much more interesting.

Most of them didn't have much of a point but they were fun to listen to and good to forget about other things, if for a moment. Something different from the day to day boredom and the mass of confusion that plagued her, or withholding the realization that real life was much sadder. Much more...morose.

Even so, it was the only reason at all that she saw her brother. That they could still remain connected despite their paths having forked years ago. She cherished them, held the stories deep in her skull and her sternum for that very reason.

It was her only tie to something beyond herself—the stories were the only representation of her time spent with her last living relative. They were memories to keep them in touch.

They did not see each other often.

He lived his life attempting towards greatness and a legacy to last forever. It was the sort of life that kept him busy. The sort of life that meant she may never get to see him again. All the more, she held her remembrances, the delicate wisps of  _knowing_.

Unlike him, she was secure in the knowledge she would be safe. She may have been bought from the orphanage but that debt would be paid off quickly and then she'd be left to make her own choices. She'd get to leave, and go far away—and be the one to visit him for a change.

Or, at least, that's how she idealized her future.

It was much nicer to think about than the scowling and rough-handed Okaa-san and the always frazzled girls that crowded around her in their shared shikomi duties. Nicer than the floors she had to scrub, the letters she had to deliver, and the meals she had to cook for more mouths than she cared to recall. Nicer than having to wait for her misedashi ceremony, waiting to be acknowledged. Nicer than a lot of things.

Of course, she couldn't deny that her position in life was already 'nicer than a lot of things'. It was just that she was selfish—she didn't bother hiding this about herself. She couldn't bring herself to think of it as something wrong either. Unlike most people, she actually knew what she wanted and it wasn't 'everything' like someone with arrogance might say.

No, she wanted something much more difficult to obtain.

A happy life—and she knew she wouldn't get it with other people telling her what to do.

Perhaps it was the side effect of all the great folktales swimming inside her head. Perhaps she was delusional and perhaps she should just remain obedient like the other girls. Perhaps—but she wasn't her brother's sister if she didn't have a spirit like his to match.

He was her greatest inspiration after all.

His  _stories_  were, more accurately put.

Especially, their favorite, the story of the two frogs in the well.

She had always wanted to see the ocean—she just hadn't realized she'd already seen it when she finally did.

* * *

"Is it true? You've become a maiko?" Chizumi asked, grinning with her bright teeth fully exposed. It stood in stark contrast to the darkness of her skin.

"I've just come from my misedashi," Ayame informed her best friend, unable to keep the smile off her face.

Chizumi yelled out into the room, making the other girls look up from their books in clear agitation. Whatever—it wasn't her problem that they didn't study when they were supposed to and needed to pull allnighters.

"Finally!" Chizumi giggled to herself and elbowed Ayame in the side, "You've finally joined the rest of us. Can't say I'm excited to say goodbye to your homecooked meals though."

"Okaa-san already has a few shikomi girls in order," Ayame informed her, waving her concerns aside. "For now, I actually get to go with the rest of you to ozashiki events. Kanan-onee-san even has a few things lined up for me this week and something big might be happening on my birthday."

"So soon! That's at the end of next month!" Chizumi blinked in surprise. "Though, you've always been the most talented of us. Even if you  _are_  the youngest, Okaa-san has always liked you the most and your onee-san is such a famous woman! Ahhh, I'm a little jealous." She pulled a face.

"Maa, don't be  _jealous_. There's no way it's anything especially crazy," Ayame nibbled on the bottom of her lip in thought and shrugged. "Besides, you had your misedashi when you were sixteen. I'm not so far away from that."

"But Okaa-san has given you all the same lessons as the other girls for years now, and even had you perform at the Miyako Odori, and you've become a maiko at the age of fourteen! It's clear you're a cut above the rest." Chizumi grunted and slipped onto her futon to press her face into her pillow.

She was clearly distressed.

"Technically, I'm close enough to be fifteen," Ayame pointed out, though she wasn't sure if it would help anything.

She was a little bit embarrased—while it was true that she'd always excelled at her studies and had been allowed to join the maiko in their teachings, it didn't mean she was a 'cut above the rest'. It was just that she worked hard. In fact, it just showed that she was driven.

She had to be if she was going to at all make her brother proud.

"Your future is so bright, I've gone blind," Chizumi wailed into her pillow, causing Haruko to chuck a pencil at her back and Mana to very harshly shush her.

Ayame laughed, not knowing what to say.

If anything, she had the oddest feeling that what she had said was entirely and wholely  _false._

Call it woman's intuition.

* * *

She was at the shrine on New Year's Day when it first happened.

It was the sound of two hands smacking together that caused her to look up but it was only what the boy said that made her stare. She'd heard a great deal of strange things in her life, birthed from time spent being told stories and stemmed from her great love of tall-tales and oddities. But never in her life had she heard something so ludicrous.

"I hope to marry the girl standing right next to me!"

He was looking right at her.

Striking white-silver hair and eyes as dark as the midnight sky, he wasn't bad looking. Cute, even, but he was incredibly short and incredibly stupid to think that he could say something so blatantly...disrespectful?

She didn't know what it was but it was certainly  _something_.

Ayame swallowed thickly before turning to look back towards the saisenbako.

She had yet to give her coin and still feeling his gaze on her, Ayame tossed it in with a snap of her wrist. It clanked and clanged as it fell in but her mind was elsewhere as she rang the bell, not even recalling which deity it would call forward.

Certainly, her wish tonight wouldn't be granted—and neither would his.

Ayame bowed twice, clapped her hands twice and faced forward even as she saw nothing.

It was at this point that she should have been praying.

Instead, she muttered in a low tone, "I wish for my future husband to be taller than me."

Then, with her eyes closed, she bowed one last time.

It was a waste of a shrine visit.

As Ayame turned to go, disappointed in herself as she'd let herself get distracted, she wasn't expecting the hand that shot out to catch her wrist.

She twisted to look at him and glared, chancing upon his wide-eyed expression as if he himself hadn't realized what he was doing.

"What is your name?" he blurted and she stared back at him.

"You're not supposed to say your wishes out loud or they won't come true," she told him, not even sure why she was gracing him with a response.

"My name is Hatake Sakumo," he replied, as if he hadn't heard her. His palms were sweaty and his eyes were glistening. Ayame was very uncomfortable. "Your name?" he repeated and she squinted at him.

"Aya," she answered, deciding it would be best to remain at least somewhat anonymous. A good middle ground, considering she wasn't very good at lying to people.

"Will you be here again soon?" he asked, and though his hand was hot, his grip was firm.

He looked younger than her but there was something familiar about him. Something that reminded her of her brother. Was he a shinobi? Or perhaps it was his light hair and in part the ambitious gleam in his gaze. Were they a breed of some sort?

Ayame rolled back on her feet, inasmuch as she could in her geta.

"No," she told him, quite firmly and decided then that she would pull away.

She expected resistance but his hand fell limp at his side the second she tugged her arm from him.

"I'll be waiting," he told her, cheeks bright red and dark eyes still shining as they reflected the stars in the sky.

Too bad for him—she only came once a year.

* * *

"Maiko get all dressed and ready and it's all for  _nothing_. I know we're minarai but it's not like we haven't seen the dances a thousand times  _already_. Why do we even have to go to such lengths when we're just going there to talk to old men?" Mana whined, collapsed against the doorway with her legs splayed out and her kimono hiked up to her thighs.

"I wonder the same," Chizumi added with a great exhale. "I had to spend four hours on my hair today! Four! I saw one of the older girls put on their wigs and be ready under half the time."

"It's because you have such curly hair, takes time to straighten out," Haruko chimed in from the corner, hands quietly strumming the strings of her shamisen.

"Curly hair, straight hair, won't make a difference when we're older and can wear the wigs," Chizumi shot back and fell to her futon with another sigh following as soon as she laid on her side and got comfortable.

"Okaa-san will notice all of your efforts and you'll be performing soon enough, don't worry," Ayame said with a wave of her hand, before returning to clipping her toenails. She hoped they moved onto much more interesting things soon—there was only so much complaining that she could handle without blowing her lid.

"Of course,  _you_  don't have anything to worry about," Mana snapped, emerald green eyes seething. Somehow, the bags under her eyes only darkened the effect and made it all the more effective. Ayame was almost impressed.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, unsure if she was inviting trouble or not.

"Says the girl who caught the attention of a Daimyo's son in the first week of being a maiko! Don't even try and pretend you don't realize how popular you are at ozashiki," Mana muttered, narrowing her eyes at Ayame.

"Or that, if you weren't so young you would have already had your mizuage," Haruko tossed in, eyes and hands still focused on her shamisen. It added a gentle backdrop to their discussions normally—if she wasn't feeling as irritated as she was.

Ayame made a noise in the back of her throat.

"She might have even been at the erikae stage if it weren't for her age," Chizumi mumbled, looking as if she was about to doze off.

"I don't know what any of you are talking about," Ayame informed them curtly, not willing to rise to false flattery.

Mana rolled her eyes. "Of course you don't! You never do. For that, you'd actually have to listen to the things we say instead of daydreaming all your freetime away."

It was Ayame's turn to roll her eyes as she set aside the nailclippers and tossed her mess into the trash.

"Regardless, we'll all become geiko eventually. Stop worrying so much," she told them out of pure exasperation.

Then, sliding in under the covers of her futon, she turned on her side and signaled her dropping out of the conversation.

Tomorrow she would meet with a possible future danna—and she certainly needed rest for  _that_  headache.

* * *

Ayame ended up seeing Hatake Sakumo much earlier than she expected to. Much earlier than she wanted to—which was another way of saying that she would have rather forgotten about him. Preferably, long before she got a chance to see his face again.

Unfortunately, he  _also_  hadn't forgotten about her.

"Kanan-onee-san," Ayame murmured behind a raised hand so as to discreetly call for her. She watched as the blonde turned to look back at her, annoyance clear in her gaze. Ayame didn't pull away—she was used to her mentor giving her the cold shoulder.

"What is it? Can't it wait until the ozashiki is finished?" Kanan-onee-san returned just as quietly and without making much movement with her lips.

"Tell me again, which one is to be my danna?" Ayame asked, casting her gaze around the room and still disgruntled each time she saw the same face of the boy who hadn't been able to quit looking at her.

"His name is Shimura Danzo," Kanan-onee-san answered, though with an exasperated roll of her eye.

"But who is the kid at his side? His son?" Ayame asked, unable to help herself.

"His bodyguard," Kanan-onee-san answered, almost too soft to be understood.

At hearing it, she wasn't able to hide her frown of confusion. Inside, she couldn't envision him protecting anyone, let alone himself. He seemed too small, too slight, and all around too naive. He couldn't even wish for things properly—what skill did he have in being a guard?

"Why would that man need a bodyguard?" Ayame asked moments later, not sure why she wasn't letting it go.

No. She knew why—it was too ingrained in her to ask questions, even when uninterested.

She'd been trained to be a conversationalist, after all.

"It's because of the war, of course," Kanan-onee-san said, her answer still soft and barely noticeable amongst the conversations flitting about the room filled with interesting people of all kinds. "Shimura-dono is a strong shinobi, but it's a war and he can't easily trust people outside the hidden village, can he? It just can't be helped—it's the first war of its kind. No one knows what to expect when it's the entire world of shinobi fighting like they are."

Ayame paused as she chewed on Kanan-onee-san's words.

The Shinobi World War—first of its kind.

Had it already gone so far?

Ayame used to live in Konohagakure when she was small, still in the orphanage. But she hadn't been back since she'd been bought by the Okiya she still lived in. While the village she resided in now was, for the most part, untouched by the stresses of the war, she heard news from time to time as people so loved to talk politics in ozashiki.

For some reason, it hadn't actually hit her until then that there was actually a war occurring while she had always been so focused with other things. She wondered why Jirai-nii had never talked about it.

She worried for her brother. She tried to remind herself that he was in good hands, with such a famous shinobi as his teacher. But it was then that she worried most for him. She wondered, gazing at the face of Shimura Danzo, what notoriety would bring to him and his teammates? Lastly, she wondered if she might ever see him again, if things were truly so awful.

His last visit was weeks ago.

"Kanan-san, a pleasure," an unfamiliar voice interjected into the blue of Ayame's thoughts.

"Shimura-dono," Kanan-onee-san bowed as gracefully as she'd always done it and Ayame floundered for a moment at what to do until she followed a fraction too late with a bow of her own. Damn. She'd been more distracted than she cared to admit.

"And the name of this lovely sapling?" Shimura-dono asked, and though it was only for a moment, she met his gaze.

"Ayame," Kanan-onee-san answered, shifting to give room for her to step forward.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Shimura-dono," she spoke lowly and softly, bowing once again for good measure.

"And she is a maiko of your mother's Okiya?" he wondered, sounding as if he couldn't believe it. She heard this often—she still didn't understand it as she'd never bothered to ask why they were always so amazed.

"Not quite yet," Kanan-onee-san rushed to explain without sounding rushed in the slightest. "She has yet to have her mizuage and it'll be a while more before she has her erikae."

"She is the one you wanted me to meet, no?" Shimura-dono asked, looking amused.

"You asked to meet my most promising geiko and out of all my girls, she is the one I know will go the furthest. In your care, she'll be able to entertain the Daimyo of the world. A lucky piece to have in the war—I'm sure you know the benefits of that."

"How long until she becomes a geiko?" he asked, eyeing Ayame now with more curiosity than before.

"As she's fourteen, I estimate that when she is eighteen she'll be ready to formally entertain guests unchaperoned."

"Four years," Shimura-dono chuckled to himself before nodding, "it'll be long enough for me to properly assess her skill for myself."

"I hope to meet all your expectations," Ayame interjected, hiding her annoyance at not having been allowed to speak for herself.

"That is only the bare minimum of what I expect," he informed her and she blinked, miffed at the clear doubt in his eyes.

He bowed dismissively towards Kanan-onee-san and slid himself in the direction of another geiko, who warmly greeted him with a coy red smile. Behind him, following at a set distance away, the Hatake boy turned to look at her and gave her the barest of signals towards the door.

Ayame stared at him.

What did he expect from her? To suddenly leave the ozashiki as though that wouldn't mean losing the chance as forming better contacts than that snob of a man, Shimura Danzo?

Though, if Kanan-onee-san's words were anything to go by, there most likely  _wouldn't_  be a better contact.

Ayame broke eye contact and stared at the ground with a firm resolution not to leave. Or to peek at him. Or think of him.

For a time, it was all she could do.

* * *

Festivities and alcohol were to blame for the mess she was in.

While most ozashiki guests were polite and left just as they were—if a bit tipsy from the sake—there was always those few that took it too far. The ones that were too rowdy, too uncontrolled, rich, hungry, and  _loud_.

It was because of them, and abided by the fact that Kanan-onee-san was caught among them, that Ayame just so happened to find herself outside.

And ensnared in Hatake Sakumo's arms.

He gazed at her now and while she knew she had him to thank for holding her upright after having just nearly face planted into the mud, she held no gratitude. She would have rather taken the hit to the face.

As she stared back at him, not bothering to hide her distaste, he realized what she was saying without words. Swallowing, he adjusted his hold on her, hand on her waist and pulled her back onto her feet. She stood next to him, close enough to smell his oaken scent and see what looked like glimpses of fireflies in his hair—all details that she noticed before she could stop herself.

His hand was warm on her back.

"I'm sorry about...the dirt," he mumbled, looking down at her hands that were still white with paint. She eyed the specks that ruined what was once immaculate and unmarred.

"It's just dirt," she told him frankly, "it'll wash off."

"Right," he agreed, and then met her gaze with full focus. Intent and certain. "I didn't expect to meet you here, of all places."

"Of course you hadn't," Ayame regarded him with a thin veneer of exasperation. "For you to expect that, you'd have to actually know me."

Hatake-san would have never made that wish if he had known her, after all. Even she acknowledged she was too troublesome to marry.

Not her problem though.

Sooner or later, he would realize she wasn't who he thought she should be. Then he'd grow bored and it would become a fond memory for him, praying for a girl to marry him at the shrine on the first day of the new year. Perhaps he'd think of it and call himself silly in the future. More likely, he'd forget it ever happened at all.

Beside, he was a shinobi and Ayame had only enough room in her heart for one of those.

"I want to," he blurted out, arm tightening on her waist and pressing her closer to him. She could hear his heartbeat thundering inside his chest. The calm beat in her own didn't seem so natural the longer she stayed pressed against his.

Ayame lifted a brow at him.

"That is," he continued, looking sheepish as he pulled away, "I want to get to know you."

"Why?" she asked, deciding that she had a right to know why she was being pursued so desperately. "Just because I'm a little pretty?" She scoffed at him and pushed him away from her. He let himself be moved.

"No? I mean, maybe? I don't know," he mumbled and looked confused by his own response. How did he expect that to make any sense to her either?

"So, it is because of my face," she summarized, piqued by his own lack of sensibilities and self understanding.

"Maybe at first?" He made a weird face but after swallowing, he brightened and reached for her hands. She didn't know why, but she let him take them. "It's different now. I don't know what it is but I  _feel_  something. It's weird, I can't describe it very well...I've never been very good at emotion but..."

He trailed off, looking like he was a fish out of water, mouth opening and closing but with no words escaping him.

Ayame looked him straight in the eye.

"You're an idiot," she informed him, and it was out of a sense of duty—if he had no self awareness,  _somebody_  had to tell him. She didn't mind being that somebody. In fact, she enjoyed it the responsibility.

"I've never been called that before," he whispered, a strange look of awe crossing his features and making him look less like a fish and much more like a dog.

"You're weird," Ayame muttered, tempted to pull her hands away from his warm ones. But, well, she was a bit cold...and he was like a heater.

Maybe the weird one was her.

Hatake-san laughed and whatever it is she had said, she'd already forgotten it. Ayame looked at him, exasperated by the oddity of his persistence and his comical way of expressing himself.

She was the one that should be laughing—taking people like him seriously was  _asking_  for bad things to happen.

"You look so much like a painting," he said, cheeks red with what might have been a blush if it wasn't so damn cold outside. Gazing up at her, another reminder that he was just a kid, he continued with a warmth pooling in his dark midnight eyes, "it's unexpected hearing you be so blunt."

"If I'm not honest, how is anyone supposed to understand me?" she asked, rolling her eyes at his short-sightedness.

"I guess I'm just not used to understanding people then," he laughed, though it was a bit of a sad one.

Ayame looked away and muttered, low enough that she hoped he didn't hear her, "when you're a shinobi, actions speak louder than words. Isn't that how you people come to understand each other?"

_Why am I trying to console this moron?_

Maybe she was the  _real_  idiot.

"I guess that's also true," and like that, he looked so much happier. "You're very smart, aren't you? That woman said you were her most promising student. We have that in common."

He looked very pleased with himself.

Ayame squinted at him. "How do we have that in common?"

"I may not look it, but I'm a jounin," his lips quirked and he scratched at his cheek as if he was saying something embarrassing.

"You look ten years old," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, unconvinced of what he was saying. Though, logically speaking, it  _would_  make sense as to why he was allowed to be the bodyguard of someone so presumably important.

"What?" he looked shocked to know this, eyes widening and cheeks growing a shade darker, "no way! I'm fourteen already and I'll be fifteen this year!"

It was Ayame's turn to be surprised.

"You're  _my_  age?" she asked, blinking and gazing suspiciously at the clear height difference they had between each other. She was nearly an entire head taller than him and though she had always been on the tall side for girls, boys were supposed to be  _different_.

It was sudden but she felt for a moment that she should pity him.

"We're the same age?" he smiled at that, a reaction that stood in stark contrast to hers.

Ayame scrutinized him from top to bottom and sighed when she reached the sight of his toes. "How can someone like you be a jounin? Even my brother hasn't gotten so far and his teacher is Sarutobi Hiruzen."

He looked even more surprised to hear that than anything else, and for a moment, she was also at a loss for words.

Moments passed with them gazing at each other, until he finally nodded.

"I think I've met your brother before," he informed her and she felt a jolt of joy at the mention of him. "He's the loud one with red markings on his face, isn't he?"

"That's him," Ayame confirmed it, unable to keep herself from smiling. She refocused on his face, and squeezed his hands. "How is he? Do you know if he's eating well? I haven't seen him in a while, and he hasn't responded to my letters so I've been worried."

"I saw him a little before new years," Hatake-san informed her and she grinned at the thought. That was at minimum a week ago. "He seemed busy but not any worse for wear."

Appeased by the good news, Ayame felt herself relax and sway with the release of tension in her body. His hands seemed almost like an anchor keeping her standing, and his warmth kept her from the chill of the winter night.

"If you see him when you get back to your village," she began, and looked out at the buildings surrounding the tea house they were at. She had to swallow before she continued, "please tell him to write me back. Even a few words will do. He has to know he isn't alone and that I worry for him."

"You really love your brother," he noted, blinking, but nodded after a moment. "Okay, I'll tell him."

"Good," she sighed out in contentment before pulling her hands out of his. Gazing at him from the corner of her eye and watching his face just barely show the effects of disappointment, Ayame decided that she had no other choice but to reward him.

She held out her arm and waited for him to take it.

When he didn't, Ayame rolled her eyes and gestured to the snowy road.

"Are you going to take a walk with me or not?" she asked, rather impatient.

"Oh," he breathed, surprise flitting across his face before he smiled and rather than taking her elbow, he reached for her hand.

Ayame, for some reason or another, felt heat rise up to her checks the moment his fingers interlocked with hers. Even after he'd held her hands before, it somehow seemed far more intimate...

"You wanted to get to know me, right?" she checked, unsure if that had changed in the midst of their conversation.

"Yes, I do," he answered, quick to do so.

Looking away from him and tugging him down the steps that led to the muddy road, Ayame tried her best not to ruin the ends of her kimono. The shoes she could always wash, but fabric was always a pain in the ass to clean.

"I'm an apprentice under that woman you saw, training to be a geiko," she informed him, absentminded in the way she spoke. "My birthday is on the last day of January and I'll be turning fifteen then. On that day, I think I'll be having my mizuage. Kanan-onee-san has been hinting at it happening soon and tonight has only helped confirmed it."

"What does a mizuage entail?" he wondered, helping her cross over a mound of snow.

Nose running from the cold, Ayame looked away so as to hide her face and eventually came to the decision that she would just tell him the truth.

"It depends on what Kanan-onee-san decides," she informed him, and just to test his reaction, she added, "but it might mean I'll be losing my virginity on that day."

He stumbled, cursing as he attempted to regain his balance and with her attached to him as she was, it seemed doing that involved shoving her into the snow. Ayame got a mouthful of it as she hit the ground and felt her hands hit ice in her own attempt to save herself. She tipped sideways, and trembled in shock as she shifted to gaze up at him.

Pain shot up her arms when she tried to move and she worried she might have broken something— _what did they feed shinobi to make them so damn strong?_ —and decided to stay still to beg off the possibility of more pain.

It sunk in anyway.

"You  _idiot!"_  she screeched, as she gazed down at her wrist which definitely did not look okay to her.

Hatake-san stared at her with wide eyes, horrified.

She glared at him for as long as she could but soon, as the shock left her body, her eyes filled with moisture and the sight of him in front of her blurred.

Ayame had to see past murky depths, attempting to blink away the onslaught of tears, in order to regain any sense of her former strength.

She didn't want to cry—didn't want to sob because of any physical pain. What would that make her, when her brother had gone through so much worse? Ayame bit her lip and took in a shuddering breath, steeling herself before looking back towards her wrists. It took a moment to blink away the tears but when she did, she realized she was a lot calmer than she expected to be.

One of them was fine. The other was...

Unfortunately the one that was  _not_  fine, was her prominent hand. Her left. It fell slackened and bent at an angle that she knew was not meant to be possible.

"You broke my wrist," she accused him, wincing at the way her voice warbled. She had never felt her age until that point, like a child whining.

Sakumo said nothing but he'd already closed the distance between them, picking her up and cradling her in his arms. Like she was an  _actual_  child. She couldn't see his face, unable to look up without hitting his chin with her forehead. But if she could, she would have been glaring at him like she had never done before.

With absolute hate and fury.

"You're such a moron! I'll never forgive you if this ruins things for me," she informed him, turning her voice as cold as she snow she'd fallen into.

Ayame could hear him swallow but he said nothing after that.

Probably too afraid to.

* * *

chapter one - end

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;  
> Jiraiya - 17 (Nov 11)  
> Hiruzen - 35 (Feb 8)  
> Danzo - ^ (Jan 6)  
> Sakumo - 14 (Sep 3)  
> Ayame - 15 (Jan 31)


	2. the girl who dances

 

" _the ocean? hah! it's paradise in here"_

* * *

When Sakumo saw her for the first time, he hadn't been able to do anything beyond just looking at her. Gawking, slack-jawed and amazed at the sort of beauty he had only seen in dreams before.

It was a tragedy.

How he could go from being the stone-faced and orderly jounin to a blushing, stumbling fool who broke the wrists of girls he liked on accident. On  _accident_. As if he hadn't trained for years to build up his reflexes, as if he hadn't dedicated months of hard work into perfecting them.

Sakumo remembered feeling stone-cold when it had happened. When he'd watched her face morph from shock and into one of agony—watched her reign in her whimpers and watched her turn eerily calm.

How could something so...so... _mortifying_  happen?

He could barely remember what they'd been talking about the time. It had been a while, after all, since he'd last seen her.

But he recognized her—saw the back of her head and could somehow identify her from that alone. Of course, it was less creepy in the way that her hair wasn't exactly a common sight.

Her hair was a shock of white and, unlike his and her brother's, it was smooth as it fell down her a silver river, glimmering with each move she made.

He was surprised to see her wearing such casual clothes and he worried if it meant something. Did she not become a geiko after all? It had been a year—how fast did those sort of things even happen?

Sakumo hesitated in approaching her but took his chance when he spotted an opening in the line he could slip into that was close behind her. Too many people appeared for the New Year's, all praying for various things in their lives. It was all fascinating to him, who usually steered away from places with a high population density.

Last year, he'd gone for the experience.

This year, he'd gone for the chance to see her.

Fortunately, and hopefully making it less embarrassing, he hadn't gone alone.

"Sakumo!" Jiraiya called, his voice a boom amidst the crowd and he laughed jovially as soon as he spotted him in the line. In his arms was bags upon bags of vendor food. Sakumo reached for them as soon as he came in close enough.

Taiyaki.

Sakumo bit into the face of the fish-shaped cake and didn't dignify Jiraiya with a response.

"Hey, that one was for Ayame!"

"You have others," he reminded him, not rising to the bait.

From the corner of his eye, he continued to watch her as they moved up in the line. He kept expecting her to turn to look at them, but she never did. Sakumo could only vaguely recall what her face must have looked like and though he knew she was beautiful, he wondered if it was at all worth getting tongue-tied over.

They got closer to the saisenbako.

And closer.

Jiraiya kept chatting away, amazed by the sights around them and eating like a big idiot the entire time. Sakumo was barely polishing off the rest of his taiyaki before he realized belatedly what he was doing.

Without thinking, he'd cut in line and stood off to her side in the second line. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see her and from her side profile alone, he was getting chills.

Just like the first time he'd seen her.

Sakumo tried to control his breathing and realized instantly that he was hedging on uncharted territory for him.

He forced himself to look away and watched the saisenbako come closer into view.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He snuck a glance at her.

 _Shit_.

He'd have to rely on Jiraiya beating him up—as unlikely as that was to happen—to keep him from becoming a damn  _stalker._

Sakumo swallowed and noticed the odd rate of his heartbeat. Worse yet, he was starting to break into a sweat and he  _hated it._  If this was what it meant to like a girl, he wanted no part of it. In fact, though he hadn't been looking for one, he knew what he would wish for.

Thankfully, it was his and her turn at the saisenbako. His turn to pray for something.

He bowed twice, clapped twice, and tried to keep his mouth shut as he prayed with all his heart.

"I wish to marry the girl next to me!"

Shit.  _Shit._ _ **Shit!**_

That wasn't the plan. He was going to wish to be rid of his emotions!

Sakumo looked away just as he felt the heat of her gaze. He was sweating even more now.

"Oi, Saku-teme," she said, her voice husky. The chills returned and his body was too hot to live in any longer. He'd rather die than meet her gaze, he decided.

Seconds passed in silence and they were probably making the people behind them annoyed. Whatever, he was trying to leave his body before it was too late.

It was too late.

"If only the boy who broke my wrist would look at me so I can punch him," she said, in a tone that would have suited a conversation about the weather far better.

Sakumo waited a moment before finally turning to face her. He expected to see something similar to the expression that he could now suddenly picture in pristine detail. The face she had made when she'd looked at him after the accident had first occurred—with anger and heated wrathed.

Instead, she looked more annoyed than anything else.

He breathed a sigh of relief too early.

She got a nut shot in before he could think and while he could have easily deflected her attack, there was something holding him back. He didn't want to risk her getting hurt again. He'd seen before just how outmatched she was to his strength.

Sakumo yelped at the pain and bent over, groaning.

While she might have broken a wrist, she seemed to have recovered to full health if her death punch was anything to go by.

"You forgot to throw in a coin before you prayed," she told him, tossing in hers. Looking up with his hands cradling his sore crotch, he watched her bow and clap and noticed for the first time that he could see red markings on her face that he hadn't thought would be there.

 _Guess they really are siblings_.

"I wish for my husband to be exactly three inches taller than me," Ayame prayed, her tone calm and her face clean of emotion.

Sakumo straightened up to his full height, still cupping his balls.

Trying to casually assess their height difference, he felt his heart sink to his stomach—she was still taller than him. It was a deeper hit than the nut shot had been. After all, he had been under the impression that he had grown since the last year.

Then he recalled what she had told him.

Sakumo dug into his pocket for a coin and quickly repeated the steps to praying, slamming his hands together and very persistently thinking,  _Dear Kami-sama, I wish to be taller than her next year by at least three inches!_

"You're so dumb," Ayame noted, laughing.

She had the cutest laugh, even if it was brought on at his expense.

"Sakumo, what the hell are you doing?" Jiraiya asked, sounding disgusted. Sakumo jumped and swiveled to face him, catching the seventeen year old's look of absolute disbelief. "How can you be the same guy the cute girls never shut up about? How can  _you_  be my greatest rival?"

Heat rising to his cheeks, Sakumo didn't really have an answer to that question.

With any other girl before, he just treated them as he would anyone else.

"Jirai-nii!" Ayame shouted, her face of annoyance shifting into one of absolute joy. She launched herself at her brother, jostling the bags of food that Sakumo had to catch in midair before they hit the cold ground.

Gazing at them and lost in the feeling of envy, Sakumo's only choice was to hug the packages to his chest and pretend they were her.

 _I should have never come here_.

"Aya-chan, my dear sweet sister! How have you been?" Jiraiya asked and Sakumo looked off to the side to see the faces of antsy onlookers.

"We should go somewhere else to talk," Ayame said, noticing the same thing.

So somewhere else they went, with Sakumo trailing after them like he was  _actually_  turning into a stalker.

"It's been an entire two months!" Ayame exclaimed, pressing her face into her brother's chest after he'd set down his collection of food. Sakumo distracted himself by eating all of it, munching away and deciding that it was at least a nice consolation prize.

"Been a while," Jiraiya laughed, "but I'm glad to hear things have been going well for you."

"Have they with you?" she asked, her expression shifting to that of worry. "I've been hearing rumors that the war is...really bad."

Jiraiya's expression darkened for a moment but after shrugging, he lost the edge of danger. Sakumo raised a brow, wondering how he might handle the question. Would he be honest or would he deflect it? In what way did they interact with each other that made them care so much?

"To be honest, it's been rough lately but that doesn't mean your big brother will be going down anytime soon. I actually have some good news! You're the first to know it too," Jiraiya grinned broadly, puffing out his chest and Ayame looked at him with stars in her eyes.

"What is it? Tell me!"

"I'm going to be a jounin!" he announced and Sakumo regarded him with new eyes, bemused.

"Congratulations," he said, grinning at his friend, "welcome to the ranks."

"Oh my, that's incredible!" Ayame shouted, grinning from ear to ear as she hopped in place. "Jirai-nii, you're so amazing! You've done so well! You're so strong, and cool, and I'm so proud to be your sister!"

Jiraiya sheepishly scratched at the back of his head but he let her go on and on about how awesome he was. He didn't even have the nerve to look embarrassed—he mostly seemed pleased to no ends by her exuberant praise.

Sakumo suddenly understood why Jiraiya had such a big head now.

His little sister hero-worshipped him.

What the hell was with that? Sakumo could kick his ass any day of the week and all she could do was look at  _him._ She also already knew Sakumo was a jounin and she hadn't seemed to care, so how else could he impress her?

_I shouldn't even want to impress her. I should just give up. She hates me anyway, so why should I bother?_

He should listen to himself more often.

"Thanks, Aya-chan," Jiraiya cheerfully said, chuckling. "I'm glad I got to tell you in person. Because of the promotion, I probably won't be able to see you as often so this was really good timing on Sakumo's part."

Her expression shifted, disappointment flitting across as quick as a bird taking off. She kept her smile but it looked far more strained than it had been. Ayame pulled a little away from Jiraiya, as if chastised.

"It's still incredible," she mumbled, "I'm happy you're doing so well with your work."

"Y'know, while they don't occur as often, jounin get longer breaks than the other ranks," Sakumo added, speaking through the imagawayaki he'd stuffed in his mouth. "For example, I don't have to be back until the thirteenth while Jiraiya will have to go back on the fifth."

Ayame took in the information and though she still looked at him with a tight thin-lipped expression, she didn't seem angry that he was speaking. It was stupid of him, but he couldn't help but see hope for himself from that reaction.

Shit, he really was a goner.

_This doesn't make sense. Why can't this make more sense?_

More importantly—why did he never do anything right when he was around her?

Ayame interrupted his thoughts when she turned away to look at her brother, and he watched her lips draw out into a pout.

"You have to leave in four days?" she asked, "The girls will be so disappointed. They love when you come to visit."

"Eh? They will be?" Jiraiya had the nerve to finally look embarrassed. "They don't think I'm weird?"

"Of course not!" Ayame shook her head furiously. "If they do, I'll just have to show them how cool you are. There's no way there's a girl out there who wouldn't fall in love with you."

"Hm~? Really~? You think~?" Jiraiya hummed to himself, his broad grin returning to his face.

"There is one girl," Sakumo interjected. "Tsunade-san has a very different opinion than you do, Ayame-san."

He felt weird adding an honorific to Ayame's name, but he'd already offended her too much for him to try and push it.

 _Me-chan is a cute way to call her_ , an enemy thought came to mind.

Sakumo had to physically shake himself so as to bade off the temptation.

"Jirai-nii's teammate?" Me-chan asked for confirmation— _Ayame._  Ayame asked for confirmation.

"Yup," Sakumo confirmed and tried to act casual as he said it.

He probably looked constipated.

Ayame looked thoughtful at the news. "As a friend then? I can understand that, since she's his teammate. Even I don't want to fall in love with someone like him. He's my brother, after all."

Sakumo scored the information for later, making a mental note to study Jiraiya closer.

"Oi! It's not that," Jiraiya spoke up after rooting through the bags for something to eat, not realizing that Sakumo had already inhaled most of it. "She just doesn't like me."

"Why not?" Ayame innocently asked, as if she couldn't fathom anybody not liking her brother.

_Why do I like someone so weird?_

While Jiraiya wasn't an awful person, and he was a fun guy to be around, it was strange for anyone to think so highly of him. Strange for anyone to think so highly of  _anyone_ , actually. Even if they  _were_  siblings, what was it that made her care so deeply for him?

Sakumo, coming from the perspective of a parentless orphan with only vague memories of his mother, couldn't fathom it.

It was just...weird.

Still, he didn't dislike her for it.

"Eh? We just bicker and fight a lot," Jiraiya answered her, finally finding the last vestiges of takoyaki that Sakumo had been saving for his sister. "I give her headaches and she gives me nightmares. It's a relationship built on equality."

Sakumo had always found Jiraiya's team weird. Now he understood better why.

"It's okay though," he continued, eating up the rest of the takoyaki. "It's kind of fun this way. After all, If I'm liked by everyone all the time, I'll never learn to grow and become a better person."

"You're so wise," Ayame cooed, but paused momentarily before asking, "Am I holding you back when I don't criticise you?" She looked genuinely concerned.

He looked confused.

"Of course not!" Jiraiya denied a moment later, shaking his head.

Ayame seemed unconvinced.

"We should get headed towards the hotel," Sakumo interrupted, looking at the darkness of the encroaching night. Though the stars twinkled brightly, he didn't want her outside where it could be dangerous. "We'll walk you home, if you're done here."

"Oh, so soon?" she asked, her eyes shifting downwards and her lightly colored eyelashes looking like feathers on her dark eyes. God, she was so beautiful. Sakumo swallowed, his throat feeling thick and dry.

"We'll visit the okiya tomorrow," Jiraiya told her, looking down at his little sister fondly.

"Okay," she mumbled dutifully, clearly dissatisfied.

Sakumo didn't know what to say to try and cheer her up. He'd known it ever since the day they'd met on his mission, but it had never been so clear as then. He was out of his depth, without a manual, and definitely without luck when it came to her.

In part, it was because he didn't really know her. But more importantly, it was because she didn't know  _him._

They were strangers—and not even perfect ones.

Sakumo looked to the sky and while he was still in the land of the gods, he prayed for something to guide him.

He really should have just given up instead.

* * *

"Ayame, who  _is_  he?" Chizumi asked, pulling her aside to whisper-hiss in her ear.

"He's my brother's friend," she answered, attempting to disengage from the death grip her best friend had her in.

"A shinobi? But he looks so young and so  _cute_ ," she commented, smiling as if she was talking about a herd of bunnies rather than a jounin trained to maim and destroy.

"He's really strong," Ayame muttered darkly, looking down at the wrist that had taken months to heal. It had caused a lot of trouble for her in the last year and though she didn't  _hate_  him, it still didn't seem like a good omen seeing him in the new year.

"That's amazing," Chizumi dreamily whispered, watching Saku-teme talk with Haruko and Mana. Ayame blinked in absolute befuddlement.

She wondered if her friends were more delusional than she already knew them to be. It had to be a severe case, if they were looking with eyes shining with adoration at that turd of a boy.

Sighing, she moved away from Chizumi in fear that stupidity was contagious.

"My brother is so much nicer. He actually knows how to control his strength," Ayame informed Chizumi, matter of factly.

"Yeah, yeah," her friend waved the vital information aside, gesturing to Saku-teme. "What else do you know about him? Do you think we'll be seeing him more?"

Ayame sure hoped not.

But...the boy  _was_ in love with her.

Somehow, she had to make him hate her.

"He's a complete pig," she mumbled, unsure why she was blushing as she said it. "He's rough with his hands and he's not considerate of others and what they need. And...he's clumsy because he's kind of dumb."

Everything she said was kind of...the  _truth_ , sort of?

Ayame didn't want to, but she felt bad for saying it.

 _Whatever. He broke my wrist!_   _I'm allowed to have a bad opinion of him._

He was also getting dangerously close to being a stalker, so it was fine if she messed with him a little bit. If it meant hurting his image a little bit, she should be allowed to do it. A little payback wasn't wrong of her, was it?

She looked at her left hand to strengthen her resolve.

"So you've already had sex with him before?" Chizumi asked, completely blindsiding Ayame like she's smashed a killer right hook to her face.

" _W-What!?_ " she sputtered out, unable to control for volume. "How did you get  _sex_  out of that?"

"You said he was rough with his hands!" Chizumi pointed out, raising her hands as if she was about to defend herself.

"Because he—! He—!" Ayame stopped, unable to think straight but knowing she'd never told anyone about Saku-teme's involvement in her broken wrist. At the time, it was out of pure regard for rumors and their habits of snowballing into entirely different monsters.

She couldn't just come out and say he'd been the one who'd caused the accident that had kept her from her music lessons for so long that she'd been kept back from performing in the Miyako Odori.

So disgraceful. She could practically feel their gazes on her now, judging.

"But!" Ayame grunted out, at a loss for words as she realized, in truth, everyone in the room had turned to look at them. In mortification, face red and her chest squeezing tightly with breaths she struggled to take in, Ayame felt close to exploding.

"I'm still a virgin!" she yelled out in desperation to be understood.

It was the wrong solution.

"You are?" Saku-teme sounded pleased as he asked it.

"Of course I am!" she cried out, nearly to the point of hysterical tears. "It was your damn fault too!"

"Mine?" he pointed towards himself, confused.

Ayame paused, and the past few minutes caught up with her in one massive blow to her skull.

 _What have I_ done _?_

Whatever. It was his fault.

He was always the one screwing with her. Messing with all the things she valued, stepping in and changing everything. Being a total pest, not even having the damn balls to apologize for it.

 _He never even apologized_ , she remembered.

In that recollection, she was furious.

"I," she breathed, meeting his gaze and finally understanding why she shouldn't have been holding back her annoyance. "I hate you," she declared, stepping forward without thinking. "I hate you.  _I hate you!_  Get out. You stupid boy. You stupid, moronic, idiot, mean, awful, self-centered,  _creepy_  boy! Get out!"

Ayame wasn't the type to usually hit people, but she was slapping his arm with every bit of strength she could muster. She wasn't the type to cry either, but there the tears were and as stupid as it was, she was almost thankful for them.

It made her less aware of him and the fact that she was making a scene in front of all her friends out of literally nowhere.

She was never going to live it down—so why not get her say in while she still could?

Ayame shoved Saku-teme by his shoulder, ushering him out the door. He let himself be moved and it was the worst thing he could have done.

"Don't just let me move you!" she yelled, slapping him even harder, "If you don't want to go, don't go! If you want me to stop hitting you, say so! You stupid, moronic, spineless fool! Just tell me to stop!"

 _Say you're sorry!_ she thought but didn't say. Some things needed to be realized.

She huffed out with irritation, hating how crazy he made her feel.

He said nothing still, eyes wide and she knew he thought she'd gone insane. Ayame she felt like she had.

"Okay, okay, enough of this," Jirai-nii interjected, reaching over to pull her away from him. She struggled but was no match for her brother's strength.

Ayame just wanted to die. Or sleep forever. Anything, actually, was better than having this day to recall as a memory.

_So embarrassing._

"Wait, wait," Saku-teme called out, looking uncertain and she quieted. "Can I talk to her alone? I have something I need to say to her."

"You sure?" Jirai-nii asked, looking back and forth between them. She had never felt violent towards her brother before, but she supposed there was a first for everything.

 _It's his fault too_ , she thought and wanted to cry all the more for it.

Soon she'd just be a memory too him too. He'd stop visiting her and then nothing would remain the same, because how could she ever know when to visit him in Konoha? It was always like this. She never had control over anything. Try as she might, she'd always be the one left behind with no way to help it. She'd be dancing for men she didn't care about and she'd have to follow the whims of everyone around her forever.

Because she'd been bought. Because Jirai-nii couldn't have stopped it from happening even if he wanted to. Because she did as she was asked. Because she didn't fight back or argue. Because she was an idiot too.

Because she was weak.

Ayame cried then, a sob she couldn't keep herself from and she did the only thing she could think to do to hide it.

She ran at Sakumo and wrapped her arms around him, settling her face into the crook of his neck. She didn't care that her face was wet with snot and tears. She just didn't want anyone else to see her crying.

After never crying in her recent memory of the past year, it was too weird for people close to her to see it.

But Saku-teme was an outsider and he was different. Ayame didn't need to impress him. It was okay if he hated her too, because she hated him.

"They've left," he told her, bringing her out of her thoughts and the self pity she was trying to wallow in.

Ayame took it as her cue to shove him away from her but what surprised her was the intensity of his hold on her with his arm wrapped around her waist. She blew a breath in his face and watched him flinch but he didn't relax his hold.

Oddly enough, she was pleased by this. Probably because it meant she could hate him all the more for it.

"You said you had something to say to me," she reminded him, her voice trembling in a way she'd never heard it. How miserable he made her feel. Every time they met, she collected more reasons each time to loathe him.

"I'm sorry," he blurted, and the depth and shake in his own voice told her that he meant it.

"You're the worst," she muttered, weak in her conviction as she said it.

"I know," he mumbled, eyes pained. "Each time we meet, I end up making things worse for you."

"Ah, so you're aware," she noted, unsure if she should be praising him for it or cursing the fact that he was still in her presence.

"I'm sorry," he said again, the hand on her lower back warm. It was odd, how that warmth made her feel. Like she was sick to her stomach or something. Or that she could jump out of her skin.

She'd never felt this way for anyone—this type of special hate.

"You creep," she muttered, unable to think of anything else to say.

"If it's worth anything to you, I won't be coming around anymore," he informed her, sighing in dejection. "I cause too many problems and I don't want to do that to you if I can help it."

Ayame slammed her fist against his chest, glaring at him and feeling for the first time, disgusted. "If that's all your dedication to your dreams come down to, then okay! Goodbye! Never show your face again, you dirty, stupid, rotten liar!"

She cued each word with a jab to his chest, fury growing with each strike.

"But isn't this what you want?" he asked, bewildered.

"What do  _you_  want?" she asked, furious. "What is it that you even came here for? Why did you follow me at the shrine? Why did you pray to the gods for something so stupid if you weren't going to try to get it yourself? Do you have no conviction or are you just talk in the end? When I treat you terribly, don't you want me to stop? Tell me! Why don't you speak up and tell me already!?"

"Why do you  _care_?" he blurted, releasing his hold on her and taking a step back. "Why are you even asking me this? You said it yourself—you hate me."

"I  _do_ hate you," she muttered, wondering just what about him made her turn so hysterical. "I hate you. You, who left me behind and didn't even say sorry when you got me hurt. You, who so easily asks for things. You, who doesn't care to work for them. You, who keeps ruining the month I was born in! I hate you but why do you have to let that stop you?"

He blinked at her—lifted his hands in exasperation and circled the place he stood in for a moment before finally turning to face her.

"You're so contradictory!" he shouted, face turning red. "Why don't you just make sense for one damn second!? Figuring you out is like trying to touch a cloud—it's just not happening for me, no matter how much I try to do it. You somehow find a way to evade me."

"Don't blame me for your stupidity," she ordered him, and if she were to ponder it over in self-reflection, she'd realize it was the pot calling kettle black. But she wasn't going to ponder it. She just wanted him to  _realize it_.

"I'm not stupid," he corrected her, "it's just that you don't want to be solved."

Ayame scoffed at him. "I'm not a math problem."

" _You_ —" he cut himself off, sucking in a breath. She lifted a brow.

"What?" she asked, irked that he didn't even have the balls to follow through. "C'mon. Tell me. What were you going to say?"

"You're impossible," he muttered, expression dark. "You know, I felt awful for what I did to you. I worried about it so much, I ended up getting a failing grade for the mission with  _Shimura Danzo_. I wanted to come and apologize to you sooner but I didn't. I'm just...this is  _new_  for me. I've never felt this way about a girl before—."

"This again?" Ayame asked, rolling her eyes before looking him dead in the eye. "I just slapped you repeatedly, coated you in snot and tears, yelled at you for the past ten minutes, and you  _still_  want to say stupid things like that?"

She shook her head, amazed.

"I take back what I said before," she told him, "about you lacking conviction. At this rate, you'll end up in an abusive relationship with how much you're willing to put up with. Take this as a learning experience, will you?"

Saku-teme sighed, groaning as he hefted his hands to his face and rubbed at his eyes vigorously.

"I must be a masochist," he mumbled, quiet in a way that made her think she wasn't supposed to hear it. With a reluctant sigh, she left it alone.

"You don't have to stop coming to that shrine to pray," she told him after thinking. "If you like that place, you should come more often. I've been thinking I'll be there more often too..." she trailed off, watching his expression shift through various emotions. Biting her lip, she added, "It turns out, I have a lot of bad luck to pray away."

"Bad luck?" he echoed, before laughing.

She couldn't help it—a chuckle escaped her before she could stop it.

Sakumo met her gaze then, and looked her dead in the eye. "I'll see you when I've finally grown taller."

"Plenty of time for me to forget you with then," she commented, using the calm in her emotions to wipe away her tears.

"Then, I'm going to have to do something memorable to keep that from happening, aren't I?" he mused, looking for a moment like a different person than she'd known him to be.

"Breaking my wrist and making me cry isn't memorable enough?" she asked, a little horrified at the thought. "What the hell do you plan on doing to me?"

"I have a lot of  _bad_   _luck_  to overwrite, don't I?" he murmured, reaching for her elbow and tugging her close to him. Her hip knocked against his and though he should have been much taller than her if he was attempting to pull such a move, she couldn't deny the intensity of his gaze.

That special sort of hate was making a sudden, biting reappearance it seemed.

She should have pulled away. Should have—but didn't.

Ayame let Sakumo kiss her, promising herself all the while that it would be something she'd forget as easily as people forgetting her.

* * *

chapter two - end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Two) 
> 
> A year later.
> 
> Jiraiya - 18  
> Hiruzen - 36  
> Danzo - 36-37  
> Sakumo - 15  
> Ayame - 15-16


	3. the boy who fell in love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language Guide;
> 
> Hanamachi - geisha communities
> 
> Giongakure - the name I picked is based off the real world Gion District in Kyoto, Japan. Historically, a famous hotspot for ochaya (tea houses) and the geisha/geiko that would perform in them.

 " _you can only glance at the sky from the bottom of your narrow well"_

* * *

"I wish to marry the girl beside me," Sakumo said at the clap of his hand just moments after his coin clinked into the saisenbako. They were alone, just the two of them, on a late winter night just a week away from her seventeenth birthday.

She didn't know why she'd agreed to come but he had been particularly insistent in his letter to her. Much more than usual, at least.

Looking at him now, she couldn't guess what it was that he had planned.

Ayame nudged his foot with hers, tempted to try and shove him over. She withheld and rather than attempting bodily harm, she very delicately lifted her hand out to hold it against his head. She looked up at him and though she'd been meeting him on and off throughout the year, it was only in that moment that she had to admit it.

"Congratulations," she told him, "you've met only one of the requirements."

"Just  _one_? What are the others?" he asked while she tossed her own coin in.

Bowing, clapping, she prayed with all her might.  _I wish for him to give up soon._

Outloud, she murmured, "I hope my future husband will have hair longer than mine."

Sakumo gawked at her, causing her to laugh. Ah, he was so fun to mess with.

"That's impossible! There's no way my hair can get so long," Sakumo reached to finger the ponytail he had his hair in, doubt etching itself into his expression.

"Hm~?" Ayame lifted a brow, "I think it's only right I get to claim a husband who meets all my standards. Beside, if you really cared so much, then at least  _try_  to meet them."

"You're so selfish," Sakumo muttered, his brows drawing together. He released a breath, met her gaze and held it a moment before asking, "does this mean, if by chance, your hair miraculously shortened, I'd be passing your standards?"

Ayame inched her hands towards her hair, and she grasped it protectively, glaring at him, "don't be an idiot! If I don't wake up tomorrow with a full head of hair, you can kiss any chance with me  _good-bye_."

Sakumo shrugged, playing it very casual. "It was worth asking."

"So  _not_  worth asking," she muttered darkly.

"I wouldn't do it anyway," he sighed, looking at her with a hint of a smile. "It's too pretty."

_Smooth bastard._

Ayame blamed the flush of her cheeks on the cold and the nipping frost of a winter night.

She couldn't believe she'd snuck out of the okiya for this. Just to mess around with some sort of moron who  _might've_  been a good kisser but was entirely too bothersome to repeatedly subject herself to the torture of his presence. Tch, he was so stupid—really stupid.

Why  _had_  she gone out to meet him?

Better question, why did he keep calling her out in the first damn place?

She was pretty sure he found her just as annoying as she found him.

Ayame glanced at him but decidedly could not ask him. As if he'd be any help anyway.

"Happy birthday," Sakumo suddenly said, making her blink rapidly as he brought out a box.

She reached for it, confused.

"It's a week away," she mumbled, unsure if he'd forgotten the date or not.

"I know, but it conflicts with a mission I'm assigned with," Sakumo looked at her sheepishly, like he actually felt bad to be missing her on that day.

Ayame hated times like this the most—when he made her feel vulnerable and unexpectedly gracious. Even her own brother didn't give her presents by hand anymore. Usually it was money sent inside an envelope.

She wondered what could be inside the slim box and though she felt curious, she was more embarrassed than she should have been. If she opened it now...he'd see her face and if she was somehow unexpectedly happy...

"I'll open it on my birthday then," she told him, slipping the box into her bag.

"Right," he smiled, and it hinted at the sharp canines she couldn't help but think made him look unfortunately adorable. But he didn't need to know that. Sakumo continued on, unaware of her thoughts, looking for a moment as if he was feeling  _shy_ , "I hope you, maybe, write me a letter, telling me what you think of it."

"I will," she answered, before she could think.

Ayame glanced at her bag and then glanced at him, taking in the sight of him and his earnestly hopeful eyes.

If he was stupid—she was just as much of a moron.

"Thank you," she whispered, leaning closer to him and reaching out to touch him.

On that night, they shared a kiss in front of the shrine—for all the gods to witness.

* * *

He'd made her a necklace. It was beautiful—there wasn't any denying the deep set color of the blue stone. Nor the glinting silver metal that had been twisted and curled to form a tree on the face of the gem. It was pretty and wound perfectly around her neck, settling against the glow of her skin.

She hadn't expected to like it so much, strange as it was to wear something like it around her neck.

Sakumo revealed in his letter that the gemstone had been something he'd come across on a mission. He'd made the necklace himself too, discussing the trouble he had to go through in order to learn how to make jewelry and later, the actual trouble of  _making_  it. He'd clearly gone through his trials with the gift and more than anyone else had ever done for her, he'd tried his best.

Most girls would look at a letter like that and be happy.

_Oh my,_ they'd say,  _he cares so much for me! To go through such lengths for me!_

There was something wrong with her, not to be thinking like that at all.

She took one look at the necklace, read the letter, and began to cry.

She hated him. She hated him.

She prayed he gave up on her soon.

Ayame, for once, let herself be honest.

She just didn't want to hurt him anymore.

* * *

"You look happy," Jiraiya noted as he looked into Sakumo's eyes. They were hooded by his drooping hitai-ate but the smile on his face was unmistakable, as was the bag strapped around his back. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Giongakure," Sakumo answered and at his response, Jiraiya stiffened.

"Are you going there to harass my little sister while you're there?" he asked, squinting at him and wondering if it would be alright to threaten death upon a younger—albeit stronger—jounin shinobi.

Probably not, but he was willing to risk punishment of any sort for his beloved Aya-chan.

"I'm going to pray," he explained, af it Jiraiya would be convinced that was all. Sakumo shook his head, amused. "I like the shrine there, that's all."

"I'm going with then," Jiraiya decided, already trying to figure out how he would be able to talk his teacher, and subsequently the Hokage, into letting him go out of the village for a few days. The tricky thing would be convincing him that he could be ready by the time mission dispatch came around.

Sakumo looked displeased.

"It's  _my_  sister," Jiraiya reminded him.

"You can't come," Sakumo told him, looking much taller than normal. Jiraiya blinked at him, surprised but could say nothing as the Hatake went on to explain. "You aren't as fast as I am, and the chuunin at the gate would notice that big doofus face of yours if you tried."

"You're  _sneaking_  out?" Jiraiya asked, amazed. Then, as he recalled who he was talking to, he had to stop the temptation to drop his jaw. " _You_? You, who has always and forever reminded  _me_  to stick to the rules? You're  _sneaking out?"_

Sakumo gave him a look and in that look, Jiraiya was struck by the feeling of being betrayed.

Years of having been berated by the short jounin came to mind, all made much clearer beneath his closed eyelids. He was sickened.

"What has love done to you?" Jiraiya whisper-asked.

"It's not love!" Sakumo denied, a little too harshly, then added, "not yet."

"How long has this been going on for? These...visits to the shrine," Jiraiya clarified, still attempting to wrap his mind around Sakumo and Ayame and what them having a relationship would entail for him.

No.

No—Jiraiya shook his head.

He wouldn't need to worry about it. Geiko couldn't have lovers—it wasn't forbidden, so much as it was looked down upon. Ayame wouldn't risk it. She had a dream, a goal. She was going to get rich and then travel the world, and he was going to go with her, so that he could protect her for real.

"Since..." Sakumo trailed off, looking thoughtful, "since two and a half years ago."

Jiraiya was  _horrified_.

Sure, he'd had his suspicions but he'd never heard Sakumo be so  _blatant_ about it.

Instantly, he was suspicious. "Why are you telling me these things so easily?"

"Because, Jiraiya, I'm going to ask her one last time," he informed him, certain and cool in his tone. Sakumo looked as intent as Jiraiya had ever seen him. Much like he was getting mentally prepared for a big battle he was expecting to take place.

Oh god.

"Wait," Jiraiya held out his hand and waved it uselessly in the air. "My little sister and  _you_? Marriage? She'd never say yes! I'm sure, if you've been really seeing her for so long, that you'd realize that."

"That's right, I do know it," Sakumo murmured, voice husky and warm with emotion Jiraiya hadn't been expecting to bare witness to. "That's why, if she says no this time, I'll be...I'll be giving up on her. If she says no, it'll be the last time I go there to pray."

"Then, I hope she says no," Jiraiya muttered, conflicted in what it was that he was feeling.

Sakumo laughed, seemingly unperturbed by Jiraiya's open disapproval.

"I thought you'd say that."

* * *

Ayame had done many things in her time spent as a maiko, and she would do many other things when she finally became a geiko.

She didn't know why, after all this time, she was so unhappy.

Call it a moment of weakness, chalk it up to nerves as the time for her erikae approached, but it didn't take away the sickening feeling Ayame got each time she thought of her future and what  _else_  was to come.

When she became a geiko, as Kanan-onee-san had promised all those years ago, she'd take on a danna. That man would fund her while she built connections for him and she'd live her life like that until she'd be able to pay off the debts that had piled up for her, and then she'd have the chance to retire—hopefully rich.

She'd always dreamed her life heading in that direction.

Of one day being able to leave and do something different. Something that didn't involve music and dancing and conversations that grated on her nerves. Something like...creating a bookstore and collecting stories of all kinds.

Fulfill a childhood desire of hers.

Ayame could do it, feasibly. But she'd be in her thirties by the time that could happen.

While her brother would try and help her—as he had tried to with her debt—she wouldn't let him. It was both a matter of pride and of choices. She'd  _chosen_  to let herself be taken in by the Okiya, and had  _chosen_  to excel and collect the interest of others. All in the hopes of arriving at her dreams with a feeling of satisfaction and held up by the knowledge that she had done it by herself.

Most retired geiko became house mothers and bought and funded their own okiya, a cycle that would continue to feed itself. They hardly married, or had children, or did much of anything that wasn't already what they had been trained to do through the years of their lives.

Whether it was out of pride in their skills or out of fear of attempting to do anything else, it didn't concern her.

What  _did_ , however, was the feeling she couldn't shake that she was in the process of becoming just like them.

"In the future, in the future," she mumbled, knowing the present would never matter.

She was always planning for what was to come, never taking a chance to look in the direction of other things. Or people. It wasn't something she realized often enough—that inevitably there'd be a day where she wouldn't be able to plan for the future anymore. That she'd have to be satisfied with what she'd already done.

Well, she knew what she didn't do enough.

Ayame didn't always enjoy what she already had.

It was with that thought that she stared out across the lake and had another.

_I would like to bring him here_.

Even if it was just once—even if it was for the last time.

It would be nice to have one decent memory of him, after all.

* * *

Sakumo was nervous, much more than he expected to be.

Her letter in discussing his present had been hopeful for him.

_It's nearly as beautiful as I am_ , she'd written and it was sorely true. There wasn't many things that could outmatch Ayame's particular brand of beauty. Nearly, nearly—he'd take the compliment while he still could.

He had the ring to match the necklace in his hand and if she took a look at it, he hoped she'd say something along the lines of,  _congratulations, you've finally managed to make something just as beautiful as I am._

Sakumo could even hear her sweet soft voice saying it.

He placed the ring back into the box, sitting at the shrine and waiting for her to come. It was a heated summer day and he was sweating more than he'd care to admit. Sakumo always did love winter more than any other season.

He had never been one to handle the heat very well, preferring colder climates.

Sakumo thought sometimes that it would have been interesting to be born a samurai, up in the Land of Iron and the snowy ice caps. There, he could learn even more of how to fight with a sword, even more than he already knew with his tanto.

But they were just silly daydreams while he waited for her to show up.

"You look stupid with that look on your face," her angelic yet biting voice piped up from behind him. He turned to see her and at the sight of the necklace he'd made around her neck, he grinned.

"You wore it," he pointed out, and his lips pulled into a smirk, "I knew you liked me, somewhere in that cold heart of yours."

Her mouth twitched into a glimpse of a smile before she narrowed her eyes at him. "You said you wanted to see me with it on. I was only fulfilling your request," she explained, scoffing at him, "and you better be thankful, it took me a while to figure out an outfit to go with it."

"So, you're in the mood to follow my requests?" he asked, narrowing in on those words.

It wasn't everyday she seemed so amicable.

"Just this once," she muttered, looking down at her sandaled feet. She looked elegant in them, her form perfectly poised as though she looked impeccable in every waking moment. It was something he'd always found unearthly and strange in her.

How she could appear as she did, and for every single expression of hers to be so breathtaking—it was a mystery to him. Had always been, for as long as he'd been seeing her through the years.

Perhaps it was love, twisting the vision of her in his eyes. He doubted it, however. If she wasn't so beautiful, then she'd be out of a job and he'd never be so consumed in self-doubt. Would she say yes, in any possible reality? Would she have to say no?

He didn't mind if she said no. They were young, after all. If she said no, he would just have to wait until she could say yes.

But...if she said no, without hesitation or grievance in her gaze, he would finally have to admit it to himself. Admit that no matter what he felt about her, he could never change how  _she_  felt.

Sakumo feared the worst and as nervous as the first day he'd met her.

He felt so dumb—out of depth and out of his damn mind.

"What are you thinking so hard on?" she asked, lifting a hand to her waist and causing her free-flowing skirt to swish. It was perhaps the most casual that he had ever seen her, and even her normally braided hair was left to hang down her back like a snow-white cape.

Even in the summer, she looked like a snow angel.

"How incredible you are," he told her, honest.

She wrinkled her nose, "don't say stuff like that. I hate it the most."

He rolled his eyes.

"Are you going to make me into a liar then?"

"No, it'll make you more honest with yourself."

"You only say that because you don't believe me," he muttered, turning away from her.

He'd said that but...sometimes he worried she was telling more truth than he was realizing. Sakumo didn't want to think about that though. He didn't want to think about anything negative when he was with her.

Everything else in the world was already full of shit—the least he could preserve was his time spent with her.

Others might have found it strange, how he could find it to be so relaxing in her vicinity. After all, she snapped at him for even speaking, and always had a glare ready to strike hot and heavy. But, out of everything in his life, it was something he could count on. Her biting retorts didn't sting like they did at first, if at all. More than that, talking with her had become fun and interesting.

In the end, she never said or did what he expected of her. A constant surprise, with a constantly shifting worldview, a thoughtful and passionate person. Ayame had always stood out in his mind for it.

Their conversations had become a normal in his life that he wanted to have in certainty.

Something he fantasized coming home to, at the end of a hard mission where usually he had no one to turn to.

It seemed like a far away future—too far and distant.

"Don't look so upset and come with me," she ordered him, reaching down to grab his elbow and heft him up. He followed her movements, and thanked the chance to be so close to her. The scent of nameless flowers wafted up from her and he pressed closer just for the chance to linger a little longer. Like the total creep she called him out as.

"Where are we going?" he asked, confused but pleased by how events were turning.

"The lake," she answered, laughing to herself as if it was a joke he should've been clued in on. She glanced at his face and her smile made him all the more confused. The quirk of her lips, while secretive, did things to him that he'd rather not think about.

Ayame winked at him before slipping her fingers to his hand and tugging him further forward.

"Let's go swimming!"

It wasn't what he'd been expecting to hear but he wasn't at all against the change of plan and scenery.

As soon as they arrived, with him hanging onto her and her leading the way, Sakumo took in the view of fauna being brushed aside and then promptly stopped in his tracks at the sight of the wide, expansive clear-blue lake.

"This place is pretty incredible," he commented, looking at the movement of the water the closer they stepped towards the side of it.

"It's part of why a shrine was built here, a long time ago. A religious family stumbled upon this land and as legends are told, they were saved by this lake after the attack of a bijuu," she explained to him, slipping off her sandals and skirt before stepping into the water. She tossed her shirt towards the pile she'd abandoned on shore, revealing all at once her nearly naked form.

Sakumo felt his face redden as the details connected themselves and he drank in the sight of her.

Her chest was bigger than he thought it would be for some reason. Another surprise was how absolutely too thin she looked. He'd seen naked women before in the past, but they'd commonly been kunoichi who were always muscled and toned from years of training.

Her body was differently built—nothing similar to his own stocky, lean build—and it gave him the oddest thought that he wanted to explore her.

Embarrassed by it, Sakumo instead focused on taking off his own clothes, only leaving his boxers. Which was a mistake of his as once she caught sight of the print, she burst into laughter.

"Are those puppy paws?" she asked and he rolled his eyes at her in exasperation, almost glad to hear her harsh tone.

"Of course they are," he told her, affronted as he boldly posed in them with his hands on his hips. "They're my best pair. You should feel lucky to see them."

"Oh, I do," she said with a laugh, grinning as she squirted water at him with clasped hands. It landed on his chest, bringing a chill that felt good in the hot summer weather.

"Hey!" he hollered at her, though he was on the verge of laughing himself.

Sakumo rushed into the water, fighting off the temptation to use ninjutsu as he settled for classically tossing water back at her. It coated her, getting her right in the face. After all, he was a trained man with much better aim than her.

It was then, witnessing her drowned-dog look, that he finally began to laugh.

Ayame rushed him, slamming against him and—in his distraction and general leniency against her—the two of them tipped over. Quickly, they were submerged underwater. He thought, for a moment, that she was attempting to kill him.

_How cute_ —he shouldn't have been thinking but did.

Sakumo gripped her by the shoulder and pushed the both of them back into the open air.

Ayame giggled when he looked over at her.

"Aren't you going to kiss me now?" she asked straightforwardly, her voice unexpectedly warm. Her eyes were just as heated.

"Are you sure?" he whispered, and then had to swallow as it suddenly struck him what kissing her could lead to.

He swallowed again, for completely different reasons.

"In the moment, I am," she told him, and it was a rare moment where her expressions were soft and her smiles were for him.

Sakumo lifted his hand to her chin and tilted it up, his eyes on hers before he felt his draw close. When his mouth touched hers, soft and warm as it was, he felt chills trail up his spine. When she brought her hand to touch his chest, there came another reaction.

Her fingers ran up and down his chest and when he pulled away to breath, he wasn't half expecting and half unexpecting of the look in her eyes.

An answer to a question unasked.

"I think you've earned it," she told him, smiling.

He didn't know that it would be the last he'd see of her for a long time.

* * *

chapter three - end

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Three)
> 
> Two and a half years later
> 
> Jiraiya - 19
> 
> Hiruzen - 37-38
> 
> Danzo - 38
> 
> Sakumo - 16
> 
> Ayame - 16-17
> 
> Song Inspiration; Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi


	4. the girl who is a bit cliche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language Guide;
> 
> Yuukaku - regions in which government recognized brothels exist (basically red-light districts)
> 
> Ayame's son's name is Hiruko. The chosen kanji in his name is 昼子, which means noon; midday; daylight (昼) and child; young (子). Hiragana spelling is ひるこ and katakana spelling is ヒルコ. His name has an alternate kanji spelling as 蛭子, which means leech child. Hiruko is also the original name for the Japanese god of fisherman and luck, Ebisu.

" _some people are ignorant to anything but themselves"_

* * *

He had touched her sweetly and had been kind all the while.

She remembered it as something  _pleasant_  and because of that, Ayame had to question her sanity— _and_  her own loyalty to herself.

She still hadn't told anyone about it and was likely never to. It was just sort of embarrassing to talk about. Much more bizarre to admit to anyone that she'd let  _him_  of all people do the things he'd done. Anyone close to her would have already been made well aware of her opinion on him—especially if they'd been there to see her blow up at him.

She'd also have to explain that she had been seeing him on and off throughout the months and years since they'd initially met. From that alone, they might actually get the idiotic thought that she  _liked_  him.

Which she didn't.

_Then why did you have_ sex _with him?_  A voice in her head mentally groaned and outwardly, she had to share in with an exacerbated sigh.

Why  _did_  she?

It wasn't as if she'd planned for it. She'd only taken him to the lake as a reward for...for his persistence? His efforts?

Then she remembered; it was for the birthday present.

Right. Not as if she  _wanted_  to respond to his advances, only that she wanted to repay him for the gift.

That was all.

And so losing her virginity was just a part of the package. Almost like he was her first real client.

Even if that wasn't exactly what geisha  _did_ , at least not in the open.

_Bah_ , it was something like that. Not anything sincere or pristine as to think she was  _in love_  with him. For that, she'd have to feel something beyond the mix of feelings she got when she set eyes on him and that couldn't be love.

If there was a way to give words to how she actually felt for him it would be...reluctant fondness. Of course, she could admit she'd found him attractive and she hadn't disliked the thought of him touching her intimately. But that didn't mention the feeling of unease and annoyance that pricked at her nerves and made her anxious around him.

Like she couldn't breathe properly.

Ayame knew that couldn't be love.

Wouldn't it be something much softer? Kinder? Warm? Something that made her head spin and her toes curl? Something bold and new and interesting and intense? It had to be, didn't it? For people to speak so highly of it, it had to be something amazing—and amazing was not what she felt for Hatake Sakumo.

At least, it wasn't all that great in her opinion. Not anything to get bent out of shape over.

Nothing to be sad about if it ended.

* * *

Weeks passed and she didn't think of him. Not a lot, anyway.

More so, she worked on learning new performances and dedicated her time to perfecting them. As always, she was persistent in her studies and continued to be rewarded with the compliments of her teachers and the house mother.

Things were quiet for her and she spent her free time as she did any other hour of the day. She took no breaks, and at times, her body suffered for it. In retrospect, it should have been the first sign of what was to come—her nausea in the morning, the soreness of her breasts, the abdominal cramping, and the fatigue.

Ayame hid it well, not wanting to draw the attention of others and had assumed she was suffering from mere overexertion from working so hard. If she simply went to bed earlier, things would be fixed and she wouldn't start off her days so terribly. That was what she told herself.

But it didn't get better.

The second sign was in her weight.

She had always been a relatively thin girl, and while others had to diet, she'd been fine as she was. The first few pounds went unnoticed by her, but it was the additional weight that concerned her. It had been Chizumi to point it out to her. Of course, even then she hadn't connected the dots as she should have. Instead, she'd lessened her intake of food and had exercised more to maintain her figure.

It hadn't seem to help.

In the end, the third sign was the most damning.

Her period hadn't arrived on time.

* * *

She'd made a mistake.

A terrible, awful mistake.

"It'll be alright, I can help you," Chizumi murmured, though there was fear in her gaze that Ayame couldn't recall seeing there before. It wasn't the most calming thing to hear after having just been told words straight out of a nightmare.

Ayame was just as afraid.

"Okaa-san will be angry," she whispered, placing a hand to her stomach.

"Excuse me," the doctor spoke up, interrupting Ayame's growth into hysterics. She looked concerned but ultimately aloof in a mask of clinical professionalism. "Will you be scheduling any appointments in the future with us? If so, speaking with the receptionist out front will be where you can do that. We'd love to have you come back."

"Perhaps," Ayame mumbled, feeling sick and faint.

Inside, she wasn't allowing herself to think. If she did, Ayame wouldn't be able to bear the weight of reality in that moment. Chizumi extended her hand and rubbed at her back, murmuring in calming coos that echoed a bit too much of what one might do to a child.

A child. A baby.

The doctor, Takesawa Yuno-san, smiled, and cleared her throat, "Aside from that, do you have any pressing questions or concerns you can think of that would need a doctor's opinion?"

"Yes, um," she hesitated, hearing her voice shake and feeling her words catch in her throat. She couldn't bring herself to say the words. They grew stuck there, festering and burning and swelling up even more thoughts and concerns that she couldn't even begin to force out.

Ayame sucked in a shuddering breath.

"Questions can wait until...until next time," she finally settled on saying, feeling the tears gather and brim at the edges of her eyes.

Chizumi broke into a sob before she could and slipped her arm around her waist, pressing her wet face into Ayame's chest. Oddly enough, it was what allowed her to regain her control and fight back the hot tears. She took in a deep breath and met the doctor's pity-filled gaze.

"If that's all, we'll be going now," she managed out and stood.

Chizumi clung to her and though she'd never really done it before to another person, she figured she was doing it too. Her own way of clinging.

Keeping a tight hold and praying her shaking hands didn't make her let go.

* * *

"I hate him," Chizumi said with fire and molten spit.

"It's not his fault," Ayame muttered, surprising herself.

She usually blamed him for everything and all her problems in life.

"If he hadn't seduced you, we wouldn't be here," the smaller girl shot back, fuming.

"True," Ayame allowed—because hadn't she been telling him to go away for years?

"Though," Chizumi paused, her gaze flickering to Ayame with scornful heat, "you should have never let yourself be seduced!"

It was perhaps because of the heat—or delirium from the stress—or just plain stupidity.

Whatever the case—Ayame began to laugh.

Chizumi joined her not long after, but not after hitting her in the shoulder a few times.

"Thank you," she whispered as soon as her laughter died down long enough to make it out. All at once, she wanted to cry much more than she could let herself in that moment. Ayame pressed her hands to her eyes and crouched in the streets they stood in.

It was going to get cold soon.

And times would change.

And the weather would shift from green to red and to pink.

And she'd be a mother by the end of it.

"Thank you so much, Chizu-chan," Ayame managed out, unable to shift her hands for fear of an awful face being seen. She tried for a laugh and even when it came out sounding more like a sob, she just kept on laughing.

And laughing.

And Chizumi held her, laughing along.

* * *

It didn't settle in as real until the pictures, the sonograms, came back.

"I'm going to be a mother," she whispered, holding the proof of her words in the space between her thumb and forefinger. Her other hand drifted to her stomach and the bump that she had been able to hide the past few weeks that it had grown in.

She didn't know what to think. Or how to react. Or what to say. Or what to do.

Most importantly, she didn't know what to feel.

Ayame had been through the runner with her fear and anxieties. Had paced markings into the floors of her bedroom, worn her once well manicured nails to nubs, and had thrown up more than her fair share of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She'd, rightly so, had enough of it.

She was in the process of very persistently denying certain realities.

Or had been.

Until she had the picture in her damn hand.

For a moment, as it settled in and she digested the unchangeable fact, Ayame said nothing more and simply allowed herself to breath. She watched the photo—almost expecting it to vanish in front of her eyes. As if reality would change.

It didn't.

Strange and as disorienting as it was for her to finally come to terms with the fact, it wasn't the strangest thought to cross her mind. No, the strangest thing was much more mystifying.

Ayame was...almost  _happy_ , staring at that photo with blotches that might as well have represented nothing of importance.

But it wasn't the case at all—and she was going to be a mother.

Her future, for certain, had become nothing like what she had expected it to be.

And for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why she didn't think that was such a bad thing.

* * *

"We should think of names," Ayame suggested as the two of them walked outside the okiya, hedging onto the streets alongside the hustle and bustle of the busy village. Nervous of listeners, Ayame even kept a sleeved hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her words. One could never be too careful, with so many ears around.

She didn't mind the stares she got, as used to them as she was for the way she looked, especially alongside her best friend who was just as physically beautiful. They'd always been the type to attract the eye, more so when put together.

She didn't think that would ever change.

Nevertheless, Ayame twisted her body to better hide the bump rising beneath her thick coat. It didn't matter that it hadn't snowed yet—she couldn't take a risk of someone spotting her.

"Ah, what should it be?" Chizumi breathed out, thinking on the question, "Shiro?"

Ayame made a face, "No way."

"Daisuke?"

"No."

"Come on," she groaned and then glanced at Ayame from the corner of her eye, "you'll never be happy with anything I can think up. What are  _you_  thinking?"

Ayame wrinkled her nose but the thought gave her pause.

"I don't know," she sighed.

She didn't even know where to start.

"You always have been the type to think too much about things," Chizumi noted, smiling at her. Her eyes were warm and it was in that moment that Ayame truly understood what a good friend she had actually found herself with.

"Chizu-chan," she sniffled, overcome by emotions that had found their way suddenly into her.

"Maa, maa! Don't start crying on me," Chizumi said with a laugh before pausing with a smile, "just let the name come to you if you have to. Don't stress so much over it when your due date is so far away as it is."

"But the date can sneak up on me," Ayame whined, "what if the day comes and I can't think of anything?"

Chizumi rolled her eyes, "it'll still be just a baby! You'll have about a year afterwards to figure out a name if you need to, so stop worrying. You're even starting to stress  _me_ out."

Ayame calmed at the thought and advice, holding onto her friend even more so than she had already been.

"I'm so lucky to have you," she whispered, tears at her eyes, "so lucky!"

"Yup, yup. Better believe it to the day you die."

"I will, forever and ever," Ayame vowed, overwhelmed in gratitude and awe.

She could only hope to repay her someday.

* * *

It was getting harder and harder to hide it.

Ayame couldn't be undressed in front of anyone anymore, aside from Chizumi. At ten weeks, she wasn't incredibly big and could still disguise it with clothing adjustments. But without clothes, it was obvious to anyone what the bump on her stomach was and what it meant.

Even she was amazed with it, the firm roundness of it when she touched it or ran her fingers over it. The process itself was bizarre and new, unthinkable to the girl she had been in the past. As the days passed, her stomach changed and she could no longer lie to herself. Within Ayame was her growing child and even more than before, she felt the instinct to love call.

She could no longer contemplate an abortion as she had in the early weeks of knowing. Now, she thought whether or not she could really give the child away if there came to be a time for it. If she found a couple to adopt to, so that she may continue her life dreams.

Dreams she had since she was a small child herself.

Somehow, everything made her think of her own childhood.

She couldn't recall her parents or even their names—if she had ever been told them. She had been in an orphanage in her early days, with the only person she could trust being her brother. It was him who had protected her and had given her pieces of his meal if there were ever shortages.

When she was young, she had never been very good on her own. She'd needed her brother's help on everything, and despite this, had a very difficult time making friends. She never connected well with anyone at the orphanage, not that she could remember. The memories were hazy after all.

It was when she had turned six that she had been scouted by the okiya. A woman had come in with a man and at first, Ayame had thought it was an adoption and they were looking for a daughter. The truth had been interesting in discovering, as after they'd singled her out to buy, they'd asked if she wanted to become a geiko.

At the time, she hadn't even known what that meant. She'd been reluctant to leave her brother but in the end, she hadn't been given a choice. Money talked and she had been bought before they'd even asked her that question.

She'd never given an answer to it.

Naturally, after the initial mourning of what had been her life in the orphanage, Ayame began to gain an interest in what it was she had been made to study. She learned a respect and appreciation for the artform and with nothing better to do, she'd progressed in her classes with what seemed to be a knack for it.

Ayame was happy with her life and had been excited for the future with it. Something to culminate for all the years and hardwork she had put into her performances. Something to show she was successful at what she did best. Something to make her brother proud of her for.

But now...now all of that was called into question.

The only thing she could do was carry the child to full term and hope for the best. That she give him the best life possible.

Somehow, because of that, she had the thought that she didn't want him to be like her. That it could somehow be nice if he knew his parents—even if it was unrealistic.

She couldn't even conceive of a future like that, was more than a little bit apprehensive of it. There was no way she'd ever tell Sakumo.  _No way_.

Just the thought of it alone irritated her. She could already imagine him proposing to her once more and vowing to steal her away to live out the rest of their days in married bliss. He wouldn't take her seriously if she said no then and because he was a shinobi, if she was stubborn and still refused, he'd...

He'd take her child.

If she said no, she would be separated and—of course she couldn't let that happen.

_Of course._

Not in a circumstance like that, where she had no control.

She had already surrendered control in all other aspects of her life, she couldn't lose that right to choose. So, in turn, she could not tell her brother either.

But soon, she would have to tell the house mother—and it was the very meeting she had been having nightmares over. Regardless of how well she took it, it would be unchanged that Ayame had applied a stigma to her name and soon everyone in her line of business would know.

Ayame didn't think she'd be allowed to work as a geiko for much longer.

* * *

The day she finally told them, it had been raining outside.

When Ayame first told Kanan-onee-san of the truth, she had been hit. The blow had been against Ayame's chin, blasting stars through her vision and sending her sprawled on her back. It had been the first time she was ever physically hit so hard and the memory still sparked the sense of shame and regret that it had in the moment.

The house mother's reaction had been different. Not any less disappointed or angry, but not violent. In fact, for that reason, it had been her reaction that had ruined Ayame the most. It had been quiet, filled with silence and the look of unfettered betrayal—as if her actions had mortally wounded her.

It had been the first instance of Ayame  _fully_  comprehending how senseless what she had done had been. It was the first indication of she was actually losing. How many expectations and hopes she was actually failing, and having not just disappointed Kanan-onee-san but the very woman who had taken her from the starvation of the orphanage and a violent life as a kunoichi.

"Ayame," Okaa-san had called out after a long lapse of silence, "what is it that you want to have done with the child? Will you have us hide the existence of it and carry on as we have or will you be keeping it? Understand that this will decide your fate here with us and your future prospects."

An adoption with the connections of Okaa-san would mean the child would grow up healthy and happy. A loving home and the gift of a child to those who could not create one for themselves. It was all she could hope for anyone—a future that would make everyone happy.

Ayame found tears in her eyes though she ignored them. She needed to pick the first option, to not let everything be for waste. She had a chance to redeem herself, or set herself on the track for it. She could regain the respect she had lost with them, could stun them all with her skill and talent and bring even better clients than ever before to the okiya.

But then she thought of Sakumo.

It was a crime, what she was doing to him. Konohagakure could charge her if they ever found out that she had been hiding a child from him. Even more, she had reasons for the adoption. They could never trace it back to her, no one had to know she was the mother and Sakumo didn't need to know he had a child out there.

He didn't need to know.

She didn't need to be a mother.

Ayame had done her best to keep herself from thinking about it and that had been a mistake. Perhaps her worst one yet—because as the thoughts cycled in her head and the choice kept being made for her, the more she felt the tears seeping from her eyes.

"Keeping," she whispered, unable to say anything.

In the end, she had only given herself the illusion of choice. All along she had always known what the pregnancy meant to her. She simply could not bring herself to abandon the child like she had been herself.

"Is that so," Okaa-san murmured, before sighing.

Kanan-onee-san had risen from where she'd been sitting and stalked out, slamming the shoji screen door as she closed it behind her. It left Ayame shaken, her heartbeat having hiked up and her nerves frazzled.

Ayame had betrayed the both of them with one word.

"I have a friend who would be willing to have your debt transferred to them for a sum that you will have to pay back by working for them," Okaa-san explained, pausing to suck from the pipe in her hand. Smoke blossomed from her nostrils as she flared them, gazing at Ayame with a crooked smile.

She had a way of looking elegant in all other places but her private quarters. It was such a place of mystery, most girls had never even seen a hint of the smoke that sometimes trailed out the windows. When she had been young, Ayame feared this part of the okiya and had done her best to avoid it—though that had been avoidable when she had been chosen to clean it.

Okaa-san had been rigid in how she wanted it clean and out of each generation of girls brought in, she always chose one of them to personally take on. Ayame had been one such girl and for it, she had been trained harder than the others and had stood out as the Okaa-san's apprentice. It didn't matter that Ayame already had an onee-san, instead, she had always benefited by having both of them to guide her.

It was strange to her that the same woman she had disrespected so heavily was still helping her.

"Thank you," Ayame responded after swallowing, leaning forward to bow with her forehead to the ground, "thank you."

"You have squandered the potential that I have tirelessly cultivated but I will not let it be for nothing. For the sake of the child's health, I will permit you staying here until the birth but as soon as you are well enough, I will arrange for your journey to the yuukaku my friend has establishments in."

_Yuukaku_.

The word rang in her head and realized at once what it meant for her.

She was soon to become a whore.

Okaa-san tapped her shoulder, the sound of her robes moving as she did being the only sound in Ayame's ears as she looked up. The house mother was close enough to breath on her, hand reaching to touch her sore chin and lift her face up.

"You were my brightest girl," Okaa-san whispered, warmth and fondness crossing into her expression as her eyes misted with unshed tears. Then she had blinked and the moment vanished, her lips curling in disgust at the sight of Ayame. "Wasted potential is a crime worse than none ever having existed at all."

It was with those words that Okaa-san dropped her hand and stood.

"Leave."

* * *

Sakumo tried to visit, she heard, but she never saw him.

Instead, she had been subjected to rooms far away from the girls. A punishment for her actions. She was unable to leave and would instead receive meals by the shikomi girls. They were the only ones allowed to visit and the message being sent was clear; do not end up like her.

Ayame spent months in those few rooms, without any contact with Chizumi or anyone else she loved. The only thing she was allowed to do for social activity was write letters that would first be checked by Okaa-san. She didn't end up writing very many. One for her brother and one for Chizumi. She didn't receive any for herself.

The news of Sakumo had been told by way of gossip between the shikomi girls. Ayame didn't even know their names, them being too new to the okiya for her to have been told. Regardless, they too had no idea who she was.

"He was a beautiful man, wasn't he? I've never seen anyone before with silver hair like that," one girl said.

"He was kind of scary to me! It was my first time seeing a shinobi..." said another.

Ayame hadn't listened anymore after that.

It was the first time she had been allowed to feel thankful for her expulsion.

They still never asked who the father was, though it might have already been clear who it was. There had been rumors for a while, after all, that she had been sneaking out to meet a boy. Though the rumor had been untrue—she'd never  _snuck_  out—it hadn't been dispelled.

They should know that the father was a shinobi and perhaps that was why they didn't ask.

Another kindness she was receiving from her mother and sister.

The months passed by in solitude and etched in boredom that had at times left her madly singing and dancing in her room. She talked to herself a lot, and even more so, talked to the child. Even when she grew unable to dance for fear of tipping over, she still sang and talked.

Ayame told the stories her brother had told her and played the koto and shamisen in indelicate poses that couldn't be helped with the mass that her stomach had become. She had grown quite huge, making it difficult for her to do things she would have normally done with ease.

The doctors were called to her, rather than allowing her to leave, and soon she was subjected to bedrest as soon as she'd hit seven months.

The two months after that had been particularly awful and it was in that time she was finally given more than two books to reread over and over again. Instead, she was allowed a few more and interim moments with Chizumi and other girls who requested to visit, like Mana and Haruko. Those moments had been the sweetest and at times, she felt like she was saying goodbye in a lot of them.

In fact, it felt as if she had been preparing to leave for a while yet.

* * *

The day it finally happened, she'd been watering the plants of the garden she'd been cultivating with all the free time she had been given. It didn't do much to stave off the boredom but it was nice to be closer to the outside.

She'd missed going to the shrine for New Years and had passed her birthday with little fanfare. Chizumi had bought a cake for them to share but no one else had visited her that day. Ayame was happy all the same, tired of feeling she was owed attention when she had placed herself into the situation.

Already it was February, still cold outside with the temperature leaving her to water her plants in a heavy robe to keep warm. Each day, she was getting less and less patient with him and waited with her heart uneasy. She wanted things to go well, not only for herself, but for him.

Ayame gazed down at her swollen stomach and made a face, "You can come out now, okay? The world won't be so scary when I'm here for you." She ran her fingers over her stomach and for a moment, felt him kick at her side. Grinning at his antics and response to her, she laughed.

She suspected he would be quite the rebellious one to her.

"Fine," she mumbled, "come whenever you please!"

And then her water had broke.

What followed was a haze of her calling out for help and in having to wait for the doctors to arrive. Yuno-san, as Ayame had taken to calling her, came swiftly and as one of those rare civilian doctors to practice iryo-ninjutsu, she'd eased the pain of contractions with her hand.

After that was simply a continuation of the waiting game she had been playing for months already. Waiting for him to arrive, waiting for the contractions to get shorter.

Then, finally, as she worked on pushing him out, she finally felt the full pain hit her. Yuno-san did her best to ease it but it didn't keep her from experiencing the initial tear nor did it keep her from feeling the contractions that left her feeling weak and heavy.

Soon though, as noon of the next day neared, she heard his cries break out and allow her a sigh of relief.

"He's very healthy!" Yuno-san excitedly announced and Ayame struggled to get a look at him before the nurse took him into his hands. "Ne, what's his name, Aya-chan?"

She paused for a moment but looked at the sunlight filtering in through the window and very quietly murmured, "Hiruko."

"How nice," Yuno-san murmured, taking Hiruko into her arms after Kazuma finished wiping his body down. She smiled at him before passing him into Ayame's waiting arms and it was only then could she breathe a sigh of relief.

Ayame giggled at his face before lifting her finger to touch his tiny hands, "he's a cute, ugly baby."

"If he's anything like his mother, I'm sure he'll grow up to be quite the looker," Yuno-san joked dryly.

Staring down at him closely, Ayame had the sense that he looked a little bit more like his father. Same nose, same eyes. The tuft of white at the crown of his head made her sure that he'd take after her in that aspect. If he'd had silver, he might have looked even more like an old man than his wrinkled face suggested he was.

Nevertheless, she smiled, very pleased.

* * *

chapter four - end

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Four)
> 
> Jiraiya - 19-20
> 
> Hiruzen - 38
> 
> Danzo - 38
> 
> Sakumo - 16-17
> 
> Ayame - 17-18


	5. the girl renamed and remade

" _let's go to the sea instead"_

* * *

"Just give up on her," Jiraiya muttered, looking at Sakumo with more than a little bit of annoyance after they had just spent a near hour in tense silence.

"But aren't you worried too?" Sakumo asked, frowning and bitter that his concern wasn't being reflected.

"About what? She can take care of herself," he shot back, making a face that had Sakumo staring longer than it should have. Something about it made him feel worse about the situation, and he wondered if Jiraiya knew what he had done with his sister. If that was the reason why he was being treated this way.

Sakumo grunted, realizing it would be no use to try and get to her through him. It had been a bad idea in the first place.

"I'm still worried," he mumbled to himself. "They said she left the okiya, you know—but where could she have gone?"

"She didn't tell me," Jiraiya said and by the tone in his voice, Sakumo felt as if he had a hint to what was going on but he couldn't be sure.

"Why would she leave in the first place? She mentioned once having a debt. Did she somehow pay it off? Did you help her?"

"No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Because she has never asked for it. Not once. And in the letter she sent about her disappearance, she made it clear that she didn't need me or want to see me."

It didn't sound like the Ayame that Sakumo knew. After all, her expressions were always most at ease when she was standing beside her brother. It was where she could be calm and unworried. An expression she had made  _once_  when he'd been the only person around to see and never again.

For her to reject her own brother was more than bizarre to him. It was wrong.

But Jiraiya looked as if he had nothing else to say and Sakumo couldn't stay for much longer.

* * *

Ayame's recovery was faster than she expected it to be but she supposed it was more due to her excitement than anything else. She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the sudden shift in her life but it sure was invigorating having him in her life.

"The more you stare at him, the cuter he seems," Chizumi noted, poking his cheek before laughing when he gazed back at her with an open mouth dripping with drool. He seemed to be smiling.

"I love how ugly he is," Ayame said, full of cheer. Her cheeks hurt from smiling so much the last few days, having been so focused in his care. She hadn't much time to think of anything else, not even the looming date for when she'd need to leave the okiya.

Still, as she prepared clothing and packed her belongings for travel, she couldn't help but be distracted. She was thankful to Chizu-chan for stopping by to babysit, alleviating much of the desire to lift him up and hold him.

"I don't think he'll stay ugly for long, not with you as his mother and that boy as his father," Chizumi pointed out, then said in a cute tone as she spoke to Hiruko, "your daddy and mommy are very pretty people!"

Hiruko mewled at the words, his tiny hands reaching for hers.

"He's a very cheerful baby, isn't he?" Ayame noted, watching them. She stashed away hairpieces into her chest, careful with them before confiding to Chizumi, "I thought he would be much louder. I was told many stories of finicky babies that would whine and cry all the time. But he's been relaxed aside from when he needs something and it's not hard figuring out what he needs even if it's only attention. Okaa-san was surprised when she came to visit."

"He'll be a mama's boy, that's why," Chizu-chan declared with a cheeky grin.

"Maa, maa, that's embarrassing!" Ayame laughed, gazing at her son and best friend with fond eyes. "He'll be the type to rebel, I just know it."

"Before that happens, enjoy him while he's still cute!" Chizumi lifted him up, settling him in her lap and grinning as he gurgled at her.

She should have known then that it was the calm before the storm.

* * *

Hiruko did not like to travel.

For that matter, neither did she.

He cried in her arms, hating the bumpy ride of the cart they were riding in. They'd been seated for more than a few hours already and the other passengers seemed to loathe her. She kept a smile on her face, though more than anything she wanted to snap.

Her son kept her from it, as she did her best to instead ease his worries. He liked it best by her heartbeat but he still wasn't safe from the abrupt and alarming pits the wheels had to churn through. It was frustrating.

She took to singing after a while, praying to the gods that it would help to alleviate his stress and hers. Ayame kept her voice soft—she didn't want to bug the already annoyed passengers. It helped a bit but it still wasn't enough.

" _Whore_ ," a random voice said, the source indiscernible amidst the noise.

Ayame didn't flinch like she thought she would. It was true enough despite not having yet reached her place of employment, but she expected more out of herself. Something like fear or panic, but she felt neither. Instead, she felt more focused on Hiruko in her palms and the thought that if she couldn't take something back, she might as well live with the consequences. It was made all the more important with someone dependent on her to swallow back any sort of complaints.

Okaa-san had already done enough for her, giving her a path to live on that would make her time spent training as a geiko  _worth_  something.

In the end, what Ayame felt was gratitude.

* * *

"You'll be sharing this room with four other girls," Einosuke, the owner of the okiya, informed her while waving his hand towards a wide room which had been cleared of anything and kept bare. Most of the floors were made of tatami mats and she could already visualize the futons that would be laid out onto the floors.

"About my son—."

"He can stay with you. We have several other mothers and some expecting, so it won't be a problem for you to leave him with someone you trust when you're called to do your job."

"Someone I trust," she echoed. Chizumi was the person who came to mind but she was miles away in another village. It seemed Ayame would have to network, and soon.

Einosuke gave her a warm smile, his charcoal gray eyes glinting. "You and he will be fine. I can promise you that. Here, we take care of our girls. In fact, about that, you're due for a medical exam so we can know what we're starting off with."

Ayame blinked at the funny way he had said it.

"Starting off with?"

"Sexually transmitted diseases," he clarified. "We're careful about them these days after losing one too many to outbreaks. Clients of ours are screened and matched only with girls who already share similar kinds. While the system isn't perfect and some things can't always be detected, we try our best."

It was then that Ayame understood just how lucky she was to have Okaa-san use her connections. Otherwise, she might not have been employed in a place so ethical about their treatments.

"Thank you," she mumbled. She couldn't look him in the eye, almost a bit embarrassed now that it was sinking in that her life was changing. She was going to do this—live this life and everything, and Hiruko would be with her all the while.

"You'll meet Michiko, our doctor, later today. So be ready."

"I understand."

In her arms, Hiruko breathed in slow and even. His sleeping was sound, tied up with a sling that wrapped around her torso and her shoulders, cradling him close to her chest. She loved him. She had never loved anyone so much.

For him, she could see herself doing anything and somehow, it made the thought of what she would be doing settle in easier. She was still apprehensive but if she just thought of her confidence in her conviction, the future wasn't so scary anymore.

* * *

Jiraiya was a spy—the best kind of spy, a master at it.

So it was easy to find out why his sister sent the letter that she did and it was easier yet finding out where she had gone. But beyond that, Jiraiya wasn't much of a master at figuring out what to do with his information when he had no one to report it too. There was no damn way he'd tell  _Sakumo_. Jiraiya could at least guess why Ayame was being so secretive about the baby, with it being the son of a Konoha shinobi.

Laws would force her to give up her son to Sakumo and though that could have been the best thing to hope for, where she could return to being a geiko, he knew it wasn't what she wanted. Jiraiya was weak to that, and even if it was hard to stomach, he hoped for her happiness above all. He could only trust that she knew what she was doing with her life and the kid he hadn't seen the face of.

It didn't change how he felt at all, him letting her life uninterrupted. He was furious, pissed off at Sakumo for hounding her for years, making her gave in and just as angry at her for neglecting to tell him anything.

Was he that unreliable?

If she just  _told_  him, he could... He could pay her debts and take her home to Konoha, where she could have her son and be  _happy_. The Hokage wouldn't take a child from a mother already inside the village, and more than that, maybe Ayame and Sakumo could work out, someday. They'd both be parents anyway. Maybe not together but not lying to each other at least.

But she hadn't said a word and she was an idiot for it. A prideful idiot that didn't realize just yet what she was putting herself through.

* * *

Imagining doing something was different from  _actually_  doing something.

Nothing convinced her of that more than meeting her first man.

He was younger than she thought he'd be, a little on the chubby side and shorter than her. But he wasn't awful to look at, despite how nervous he appeared under her gaze. Einosuke had paired her with a first timer though she didn't know why. Wouldn't the instinct be to impress a first timer with far more experience?

It wasn't like Sakumo and her had done anything too interesting the first time. In fact, Ayame's knowledge of sex and its many positions was limited by her time being coddled inside the okiya she'd grown up in. That, and her basic disinterest in it as she had been growing up. To her, it had always been an abstract idea that she knew she'd one day experience.

Now, with the pressure on her to succeed, she wasn't sure what to say to him.

But she had to say  _something_.

"It's my first time too," she said, trying for honesty. "Doing it for work, that is."

"Ah, really?" He appeared more uncertain about her than he had before and in vague thoughts, she wondered if he had a certain sense of pressure to do well too.

"You can touch me, you know," she said. Ayame watched him swallow, his eyes flashing down to her full breasts which she was a bit self-conscious about. It would be awkward and weird for them to leak and she didn't know  _how_  she'd play it off if it happened. However, she'd prepared herself at Michiko's instructions and had pumped as much milk as she could.

Though he couldn't tell why if he noticed, her face heated up as she thought to how bizarre what she was doing was.

With Sakumo it had been easier. Much less thoughtful at least, and fast. Of course, they'd gone a few more rounds after the first but still. Having to seduce a guy and worry about  _leaking_ , it was mortifying.

A part of her wanted to leave but instead she swallowed her hesitation down and shuffled closer to him. She'd forgotten his name but that didn't matter—she didn't know the point of talking if it was just supposed to be sex. So, instead, she leaned in close and kissed him on the cheek.

At his shuddering intake of breath, she kissed his chin—and then his neck.

After that, despite worrying all the while, it was easy after all.

* * *

"First timers form a special bond together, you see," Einosuke explained to her after she'd cleaned up. "It won't be surprising if he comes back just for you."

"How do you figure?" she asked. He had no way of knowing if she'd done a good job.

Einosuke raised a brow. "He  _came_ , didn't he?"

"Yes." She could still visualize how he had looked when it happened too.

"That's how virgins like him are. They get sentimental about their first time and while they're still shy about it, they'll want to fuck the same hole that gave them pleasure until their bored and want to try something different."

Ayame shifted, uncertain. "What if they didn't like their first time?"

He fixed her with a stare. "Then you didn't do your job right."

She looked away.

"I doubt you need to worry. With a face like yours, men ought to finish just by looking at you."

Ayame frowned. This was getting her nowhere and she just needed to be upfront with it.

"I'm not doubting myself. It's just that, well, he  _cried_  afterwards."

Einosuke blinked—then laughed. "That's what I mean about sentimental virgins!"

"So, I didn't do a bad thing? Making him cry?"

"Honey, more men than you realize are starved for an opportunity to cry. By all means, do your worst."

Listening to how he talked, an expert on the reactions and emotions of men, it gave her a sense that perhaps there was more purpose for conversation than she realized and that maybe there was something more interesting about her job than she'd first thought.

* * *

His name had been Hokuto—her first man—and he did come back just for her.

There were others too; Banri, Chikashi, Arinobu just to name a few. They were a lot of them in the first month she worked and though she'd been confident in her conviction, she couldn't say the same for how well her body could hold out. Her hips, her legs, her breasts, and  _everything_  was sore.

Einosuke had started her off with one man a day in the beginning but in the second week that had been doubled to assuage the clients asking for her, the pretty new girl. In the third, she'd been introduced to group parties where she grew to be intimate with the women she had met on those days. Now, in her fourth week, she couldn't help but have her doubts.

It wasn't just uncomfortable doing all of these things, it was...

It was  _changing_ her. Where before she had known to keep her distance from others, she wasn't allowed that privilege here. Touch, rather than words, had become conversations to her and though not all of the bodies she touched were very pretty, each one had a warmth she let herself be enraptured by—that she had to give herself to.

It happened in the third week, actually. There came a moment, enveloped in a haze of breath-catching pleasure, where rather than fight against what couldn't be helped, she accepted it instead.

She wanted to hate it. She didn't want to be the dirty girl she felt herself becoming.

But she couldn't change it.

A part of her she hadn't realized had been lonely, had become satisfied. Love touches that traced down her skin and the shuddering breaths she evoked with her every movement had become her song and dance. It wasn't always a happy performance but each time left her craving for the spotlight of their gazes, the many faces that blurred in her daydreams.

It stayed with her, the sensations, and she soaked in the afterglow each time.

* * *

The girls were all helpful in the care of Hiruko and more than that, she'd join the mothers in their rotations of switching out the babysitters when someone had to go. Somehow, it ended with her watching the kids during the day as most of her customers came in the dead of night.

Ayame was sleepy, as usual, but managed to keep herself awake by distracting herself with the curiosity of children.

"Dis pwedy," a two year old girl named Asoka said to her, holding up a hairpin from Ayame's still unpacked trunk. The kids had been having fun going through everything, looking at all the rich fabrics she'd been gifted over the years by men her geiko training had introduced her to.

"It is pretty," Ayame agreed.

Hiruko, who sat in her lap, reached for it as the jewels on the pin twinkled under the sunlight. Asoka handed it over, face awed as she watched the two month year old baby grab at it. He dropped it within seconds but she picked it back up with a laugh.

"You'll be a very good nee-chan," Ayame said, watching Asoka and Hiruko with affectionate eyes.

"Nee-chan?" she squeaked, eyes going wide.

"Someone to take care of the little ones," Ayame attempted to explain. She wasn't sure how to do it, with none of them being blood relatives. Most of the women had grown up orphaned like her but had less opportunity and used their bodies for survival much longer than she could ever be comfortable fathoming. She hoped the girls in her current care wouldn't end up the same.

She was glad to have given birth to a son. For him, it would be easier to navigate the world—beyond selling himself, he could work in construction, or farming, or any other manual labor jobs that wouldn't take women. He'd have a real shot at a happy, honest life. Even if his mother was a whore.

"I'll twake care of hwim!" Asoka announced.

Ayame smiled before using her hold on his chubby arms to make Hiruko bow.

"He'll be in your care."

* * *

"I love you."

Ayame stiffened.

"Hokuto?"

"I'm not lying. I love you."

How often she used to hear those words, she could still hear the voice that said them. She didn't expect the pain that followed the memory.

"Why?" Ayame asked after a long moment of silence.

She laid on his chest, blanketed and kept warmer by their shared body heat. It should have been just that—a moment to collect themselves while the rush faded and his allotted time ticked by. They usually didn't speak at all and it had been months of them meeting. More than anyone else, she had grown comfortable with him.

Ayame didn't know why he had to ruin that with stupid words.

"We connect," he whispered.

She connected with a lot of people. It didn't make him special in anyway.

"Don't you feel it?" he asked. "That we're meant to be more?"

"You couldn't pay my debts," she told him. Ayame wasn't sure if it was the truth or not. He had to have quite a sum of money to be visiting as often as he did, but for sure her debts had never been higher than they were. Her wasted teachings had costed her a fortune and the interest rates kept hiking up further.

Debts were always used to trap women—she was just another one.

"I can," Hokuto said.

He sat up, his arm snaking around her waist to cradle her against him. He pressed kisses to her temple and brows before lifting her chin to go for her mouth. Ayame wasn't fond of kissing on the lips and she held up a hand. He caught it, intertwining their fingers as he used brown eyes to stare into hers.

"I don't want you to."

She said it without thinking. Old habits of always speaking her mind and rejecting others hadn't yet faded, and it was her first lesson in why they should have.

Hokuto's face twisted and up close, it did what she hadn't been expecting—it made her afraid.

"Why not? Don't you want to escape this life? Don't you want to escape with me?"

"I have a son, you know—."

"I'm aware," he spat. It made her flinch, softening his expression by a fraction. He didn't  _want_ to scare her, it's just that he did. "I'm sorry. It's just, I found out from Einosuke-san, not you."

"You should have waited for me to tell you," she whispered, attempting to hide her agitation. Einosuke should have kept his mouth  _shut_ —or did privacy mean nothing to him? Whatever the case, she knew she would be talking to him later.

"It's okay. There's still lots I don't know. Like his name, and how old he is. I bet he's a real looker just like his mom is. Don't know about the father, but that man has obviously wronged you to abandon you like this. You  _and_ your son. But that can be changed, don't you see? I'm willing to step in and save you."

In her time spent working as a prostitute, she'd met many different types of men. She'd thought Hokuto had been among the better ones but now, as he stared at her so transfixed, she fought the urge to get up and run.

"W-what do you see in me?" Ayame asked. It was all she could do, just waiting for his paid hours to run up.

"I see beauty," he told her. "I see a tragedy. So young, so gorgeous, and a mother on her own. You ache for more, I can see it in you. Each time we connect, you feel so  _alive_ and, and  _transform_. It's beautiful, just watching you. Truly, I hope you know, I love you. "

She opened her mouth, at a loss for words while he had plenty of them, but before she had to fashion a response, she was saved.

The bell announcing the time was up rung and she exhaled a sigh of relief.

Ayame couldn't disengage fast enough as she reached for her robe, covering herself up and leaving him calling for her.

She wanted to vomit.

* * *

"Was he that bad of a guy?" Einosuke asked, watching her.

"No." It was the truth, even if Hokuto had creeped her out towards the end. It was that, more than anything, she hated what he wanted to do with and for her.

"Then why did you turn him down? You could be off living life as a rich man's wife, child in tow, rather than stuck in this place being fucked til the sun comes up."

Ayame didn't have it in her to answer so instead she asked a question of her own, niggling in the back of her mind since Hokuto had confessed to her.

"Did Okaa-sa—did Nozomi-san ask you to set this up?"

Without hesitation, the answer came. "Yes."

"Don't do it again."

"Why?"

"Because I don't need it," she informed him, jaw set. "I don't need to depend on others more than necessary, not anymore. How else am I to become dependable for Hiru-chan if I relied on everyone else first?"

Einosuke smiled at that. "I knew there was a reason I was fond of you. Is that all?"

"No."

He raised a brow.

"I want you to change my name and I want you to stop telling others I have a son."

"This is unexpected. Your name right now is a very popular choice among the clients. You could run the risk of tanking your reputation and then where would little Hiruko-kun be?"

"I can do better if I'm not Ayame," she said. "I'm not worried about the numbers. My face is pretty, they'll return."

"Confident, I see." Einosuke gave a nod. "Okay, understood. So, what'll this new name be?"

"Takiyasha," she said.

Both eyebrows went up at that.

"More terrifying than I thought it would be," he noted but didn't seem against it.

"Will it be fine?"

"I think it's fitting. Sometimes, when you're really stubborn about something, you get this look on your face that makes you look like a demon. With your hair, it only adds to the effect."

Ayame nodded, satisfied.

* * *

chapter five - end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Five)
> 
> Jiraiya - 20
> 
> Hiruzen - 39
> 
> Danzo - 39
> 
> Sakumo - 17
> 
> Ayame - 18
> 
> Hiruko - not yet one


	6. the woman who is honest

" _it's scary to go alone"_

* * *

She hadn't been expecting it before but the first year passed by without anything too notable happening. Hiruko grew, healthy and with a strong grip. Like she  _had_  been expecting, he'd begun to rebel little by little the older he got. Whereas before he lacked agency, he began to crawl it opened new doors she hadn't been wanting him to.

"Silly boy," she muttered, reaching down to pick him up off the floor. He'd been trying to crawl onto the engawa and into the stone pathways that littered the backyard of the okiya, which would have been very bad. Out there, he could get nicks and scratches or try to eat something he shouldn't. She was having a hard enough time with him indoors for her to let him outside—he was at the stage in his life that he thought everything was food.

Hiruko gazed up at her, waving his hands and feet in the air, babbling as if she could understand. It was almost like he was trying to kick her in the face just to get back to exploring. Ayame sighed, but felt traces of fondness that kept her from being too agitated.

"Yes, yes. I know you want outside," she said. "But you need to stop trying to eat my hairpins for that."

Hiruko whined, twisting his hips to roll out of her hold but she held firm. With him getting stronger, it was getting more difficult but as he grew to be less delicate, she had an easier time grabbing hold. The trick was in not letting go.

"Imouto, dinner is ready," Mayumi's voice said from behind her.

She hefted Hiruko into her arms and stood up, snapping her gaze toward the tall woman.

One of the older girls, Mayumi was like a sister to her and had been important to Ayame adapting as well as she had. She had similar circumstances that Ayame had entered with—a geiko trainee having lost all of it to pregnancy. It was from that that they bonded deeper from, and Mayumi had been the most helpful with looking after Hiruko when Ayame couldn't.

She was also the mother to Asoka, the girl who had grown enamored with her big sister role in Hiruko's life and had been a constant companion to him. For it, Ayame was certain he was developing quicker than most kids his age, with Asoka diligent in her teachings. It was rather cute watching them talk.

"He looks a bit finicky today. In a bad mood?" Mayumi asked.

"He wanted to go outside," Ayame explained, pointing to the wide open doors.

She laughed at that, leaning forward to level her gaze with his. "Hiru-chan, stop worrying your mother," Mayumi chided him, flicking his nose.

"Where is Asoka-chan?"

"Eating, like we should be. Food will get cold if we dither anymore."

"Okay, okay." Ayame laughed. "Just curious."

* * *

"You should respond to those letters, the sender seems pretty desperate," Einosuke noted. He tapped his desk, littered with scrolls and paper, and she watched them be disturbed. In her hands, she held a letter she'd been trying to not think about.

"He's fine without me saying anything," she said, feeling her throat constrict. "He'll get bored of it soon."

"If you say so." Einosuke looked unconvinced.

"That, or he'll come visit if it's really that important. " She doubted it was.

"He's your brother, right? If you don't want him seeing you like this, isn't it better just to write back?"

Ayame's cheeks flamed but she'd been trying to practice honesty since she had given birth to Hiruko. Despite it being mortifying to admit it, she mumbled, "I don't know what to say."

"Come on now, it shouldn't be that difficult. It's your  _brother_."

Einosuke couldn't understand. It was  _because_  Jirai-nii was her brother that she didn't want to talk to him. If she said anything at all to him, he'd have more things to say and she was tired of his letters calling her an idiot. She knew she was one but she was  _fine,_ managing well without his input on her life choices. Though people assumed she wasn't, Ayame was happy.

She had Hiruko and the help of new friends. She didn't need him.

_Liar._

Ayame sighed.

The truth was far dumber. But she was practicing honesty, not just with others but herself too. Inside, she was just afraid—to feel his disappointment in her, for him to lose respect, for him to point out how useless her 'trying' was.

She was an idiot, but so was he.

* * *

"He's cute."

Ayame blew out a breath. Of course he hadn't entered like a normal person.

"He used to be more ugly. Like you," she said. Somehow, she kept her voice controlled.

"You mean like you."

"Probably like  _him_  too."

There was a silence in the air that unsettled her. Hiruko laid in her arms sleeping, arms fallen at his sides and stomach exposed by the shirt riding up on him. He didn't like kimono very much, though she would have preferred him in traditional wear—Hiruko got his way.

"Why haven't you been returning my letters?"

Ayame had a difficult time answering. The words wouldn't come, her mouth opened and closed. She bowed her head instead, hair slipping past her shoulders to shroud her face. She could see only her son's face as he slept. His small chest rising and falling, his breaths soft and adorable.

She didn't have an answer for him that wouldn't be unclear.

Placing her fingers in Hiruko's grips, she shuddered in a breath.

"Are you mad at me?"

He didn't speak. Instead, he closed the distance, his footsteps silent, before his arms reached around her shoulders. He tugged her close to his chest, jostling Hiruko in her arms though somehow he remained asleep. She was thankful for that—otherwise he would have seen her crying.

She wouldn't know what to do if he had.

.

.

Jiraiya stayed with her for the whole of the day and they talked. They talked so much, both of their voices had gone raw, leaving them to dissolve into laughing fits each time one of them croaked. Hiruko liked his uncle, almost as much as she liked Jirai-nii, from how he regarded him with awe.

Though it was unintelligible, Hiruko talked plenty too.

"This brat, he knows how cute he is," Jirai-nii said, his eyes crinkling from fondness.

"He likes to make his mama worried," Ayame added. "He likes to get out of trouble by acting cute but me and the nee-sans know better."

Jirai-nii hummed his understanding. "I'm happy I can see him."

"Me too."

"You're a good mom. It's good," Jirai-nii paused to swallow. He shook his head, eyes suspiciously red. "It's good that you didn't give him up."

Ayame's breath caught in her throat but she managed to get out a choked sob. "You're not supposed to make me cry, idiot!"

"Stupid, I didn't want to cry either." Jirai-nii's face was redder than she'd ever seen it and she saw tears at his waterline. Ayame snorted, using her hands to cover her mouth.

Hiruko giggled in his uncle's lap, looking back and forth between the two of them with a bobbing head.

"I know," she said, gazing at her son. "I know it was good."

"Can I visit more?" he asked. "I won't tell anyone. That is to say, I haven't told anyone."

"Not even Sakumo-san?" Ayame regretted asking the instance she did but she knew she had to. There was nothing that crossed her mind more than the questions she hadn't thought she'd ever get an answer for.

It would be two years since she last saw him and somehow, just saying his name out loud sent her heart hammering wildly in her chest. To the extent that it was painful.

"No, I haven't told him."

"How is he?"

"Good, from what I can see. Still as strong as ever."

"That's nice to know. Has he—has he moved on from me?"

Jirai-nii watched her with a critical eye. He must have seen how nervous she was but he didn't say nothing like she almost expected.

"He's moved on."

"Ahh." Ayame forced herself to smile, not wanting to show the wrong expression when she didn't deserve to feel what she did from those words. "That's good. I've always wanted that for him."

"He's been happy," Jirai-nii said, helping Hiruko off his lap as he struggled to get to his toys. "But what I want to know is if you are. Are you happy?"

Honesty. Honesty. She'd been doing her best to be honest.

"Yes, I'm happy." Ayame reached towards Hiruko to brush off lint from his shirt hem. "It was strange for me at first but the people here are nice and understanding. This establishment is run under ethical codes and I get regular physical checkups. The girls are nice here too, and I've been able to make a lot of friends. Not everyday is fun and sometimes I want a break but everyday is interesting. In this year, I've really gotten to change and grow up. Hiruko is a large part of that and getting to be his mother is something I'm truly grateful for."

"That's... that's good to know."

Jirai-nii smiled at her and when he snaked his hand in to ruffle her hair, she grinned back.

* * *

"You've been popular lately," Einosuke noted, sliding a finger over his accounting books and pointing to all the times her name appeared. They were doing their monthly meeting, where he would go over her progress and check in with her. It was protocol—he looked after all the girls like this.

When she was new, she hadn't realized but he was the man everyone was in love with. The girls always gossiped about him, fascinated by his presence and his way of words. He was handsome in a rugged, unshaven way where his hair grew long and the rich color of his eyes held a magnetic glow. She was certain he was more interested in men than women, nothing to cement it but a feeling in her gut.

"I've been offering unusual positions," she informed him.

He quirked a brow.

"You've been giving into fetishes? That's a bit of a dangerous game, but well, I can't complain with the numbers you've been raking in."

"I'm not doing anything that hurts too bad. Most of the time, they do very normal things and assume it's something shameful. It's weird when they feel bad afterward but they keep coming back."

"What are they doing?"

"Finishing in my mouth, tying my wrists and sometimes my ankles or thighs. Other times, they make me say things to fulfill their fantasies. A few have even started bringing things they want me to wear and lately I've been feeling like an actress, always dressing up and playing a role."

"It doesn't sound too bad but please be careful. Fulfilling fantasies might be part of the business, but above all, it's you I'm worried about. Don't do anything you don't want to."

Ayame blinked, touched by the care and warmth in his voice. It made her feel a bit embarrassed to be under his gaze and she understood then why all the girls had crushes for him. But to her, he felt a bit more like an older brother.

"I have questions," she said, trying to forget the blush on her cheeks. "Why do you think they think these things are shameful? A lot of the time, these men are married and I've been wondering, what makes them come to us? They call the names of different women and still, they're with me."

Einosuke's lip quirked. "Jealous?"

She grimaced, making him chuckle.

"I don't know," he answered, tone shifting as his expression turned reflective. "I think it depends on the individual, why they desire these things and how they view them. Some people are filled with so much shame, they could never express these sides of themselves with the people they love. They turn to others and lose themselves, lose the trust they might have had if they'd just been honest."

"Sex can be beautiful," Ayame noted. "It can be ugly and crude, quick and dirty. It can make you want to vomit. It can make you beg for more. It makes you forget yourself. It clouds the things we hold important to us. It can makes us hurt others. But it can hurt too, when you don't feel you're being looked at. In the end, it shows our imperfections, the base nature of ourselves that we don't want to acknowledge. I don't want to do that. I don't want to hide it from myself anymore."

"Me neither," Einosuke agreed, pitch lowering. "But I can understand why people still do."

"You asked me if I was jealous," she reminded him and looked him in the eye. "I am. I hate it so much when they aren't looking at me. I hate being reminded that I'm the other woman. I hate having to compete for their attention. I love sex but it only feels good when they're consumed by me, when we can feel good together. When they come to me, when they ask for my name, I should be the  _only thing they see._ "

He grinned at that.

"There really is a reason why you're a favorite of mine."

"I'd be even more jealous if that wasn't the case," Ayame said with a faint smile.

"Tell you what, I can get you onto a better path. Something that will make men  _and_ women of all sorts begging for  _your_  attention."

"What path?"

"Becoming the tayu of this fine establishment."

She gaped. "Tayu? The number one?" It wouldn't be just that—tayu were given special privileges, like being able to turn down clients and able to charge well into thousands of ryo. They weren't cheap girls, they were the best.

"You have all the skills you learned as a geiko. You have the face, the body. You've worked here for a year. I believe in you."

"There has to be a catch. It would be looked down by the other girls if I suddenly got a promotion after joining just last year."

"The catch is that you'll have to take on more clients. You'll need to prove to everyone else that you deserve this position. So here's my deal. By the end of this year, if you're at the top of the list for requests, the role will be yours."

"How well am I doing now?"

"Out of the fifty-three girls we house, you're down thirty for the top."

Ayame felt her jaw set. She wanted that position, more than anything now that it was realistically possible. It could more than pay off her debts, she'd have enough left over to get a house of her own and get out with her own strength. For Hiruko, it would be the world of a difference for his future.

If she got that role, she could move to Konoha—a dream of hers from when she was a young girl. Hiruko would be safe there, happy, with his uncle not too far away. She could see her brother more than she did. She could get another job doing honest work, nothing so hush-hush as her occupation now. Hiruko could be  _proud_  of her.

Ayame knew, giving her nod of assent to the deal, that she would fuck her way to the top of the list and  _no one_ could keep her from it.

.

.

Her life took a different turn after that. Her determination from before was laughable in comparison to what she showed in the year that followed that deal.

She said and did whatever she had to, sacrificed sleep and the betterment of her health to keep them coming. Sometimes, she'd overdo it—where she'd be forced to take breaks—but most of the time, it wasn't the quantity that she took, it was the  _quality_  of her performances. Which was most exhausting wasn't the physical toll.

For a long time she had known what she needed to do.

What do people come to brothels for?

To fuck.

To feel bliss.

To be satisfied.

To be  _loved_.

Did it matter who they received it from? No, but it  _could_. She just needed to  _be_  the person who could give them what they most desired. Distraction, compassion, a reprieve from the horrors of the real world and love—true love.

Many people, like her, covered it up and ignored it—the hole that never seemed to fill. The loneliness everyone was born with and spent lifetimes trying to ease.

What people desired wasn't just touch. It could never be so simple. If it was just that, men would never call their wive's names, and repressed women wouldn't need to visit. If it was just the physical, then a sense of self could be forgotten, tossed aside to mean nothing.

People have names for a reason, and they all have stories they ache to put to words. Humans are social creatures and they  _give_  themselves. They strip themselves down to the core of their being and who could so readily accept it? The weight of a soul, of a person, was a heavy one.

She knew this, she knew this for a long time.

Ayame was a jealous, base, and lying girl. She was human. She was  _human_.

In her arms, under her touch, in the throes of passion, she let her customers be that too.

Heavy as it was to receive, Ayame took it. She took it and she gave herself back.

They talked. She listened.

Ayame listened to the men—and the rare woman—and used her body to respond. They all had something in their lives they wanted to change. Things they wanted to forget. Problems that were too much for them. People they were afraid of. Everyone had the weight of the world on them and they prayed, they prayed for it to ease; the heaviness that followed the living.

They told her their stories and she told them hers.

Almost as if in answer to the love she gave, they returned it. She'd sold herself to them but with each time she met them, and the more often they returned, she wasn't just a whore to them. It would have been difficult to be just that, when she gave everything she was, all that her life had accumulated her to—whether they wanted it or not.

They loved her and more offers, like the ones Hokuto gave to her, came. From married men wanting to leave their wives, from young hopefuls wanting a wife, from old men who wanted to do a kindness, from a beautiful woman who had fallen in love.

She said no to all of them and yet watched them return.

It was the pain but compulsion derived from the human condition, wanting and staying despite everything.

She made it so they could never go—and they had no reason to.

* * *

"Hiru-chan misses you," Mayumi said, brushing out Asoka's hair while Ayame struggled to stay awake.

Exhausted, she hung her head in guilt and found her eyes closing before Mayumi flicked a pin at her. The futon was too comfortable to leave and Hiruko's tiny fists had a tight grip on her kimono. He hadn't yet woken up but she knew that if he did, he'd start crying again.

"I know," she whispered, voice still hoarse from the night before. She'd taken on three men on her own and her body was killing her for it, the ghost of sensations still lingering as she woke up to feel them.

"You sleep the day away and instead of waking you up, he spends his time waiting for you until he conks out beside you. It was cute for a bit, and it's nice he's so thoughtful of you, but he's lonely." Mayumi paused, clearing her throat. "Of course, Asoka helps and I don't want to call you a bad mother but, why? Why are you doing this?"

"It's for him," she croaked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Hiruko stirred beside her and she twisted to look at him, arm going around to pull him towards her. He was so warm and smelled so nice, it would be difficult to break away.

"Kaa-chwan?" Hiruko called, tiny voice slurred.

"I'm here. Did you have a nice nap?"

"Dweam," he mumbled, eyes still closed as he settled in closer to her.

"Was it a nice dream?"

He nodded against her chest and she brushed her fingers through his hair. He took after her in that it was snow-white, but the texture was much more like the hair of Jirai-nii and Sakumo. He would look just as wild in his youth as his uncle.

"We have to get up now. There will be food soon." For him it would be dinner, for her it would be breakfast. She couldn't forgive herself if she made him live on her sleeping schedule but it also meant she saw much less of him than she wanted to and had to rely on Mayumi more than she would have preferred. She wanted him to be healthy.

Hiruko groaned but sat up, looking up at her with doe eyes.

"Eat? Wib Kaa-chwan?"

"Of course! Now, stand up, fix your clothes. We must be presentable when we meet others."

Him complying was the indication that he understood she said and she felt herself fill with pride as she watched him wipe drool from his face.

"Smart boy," Mayumi commented as a sleepy Asoka watched on.

Hiruko beamed at the praise, showing off the teeth he had growing in. She was getting Michiko's help so that they grew in straight, and so far, he was growing up healthy. Perhaps a bit too healthy, if other people's opinions were to be believed. Many of the girls were amazed at his development in the year since they'd arrived, and while he was still crawling majority of the time, he'd made standing and walking milestones in the same week.

She was proud of him. So proud.

Overwhelmed, she took him into her arms and kissed his cheeks, forehead, eyebrows and chin. He squealed the whole time, giggling as she took a break to laugh with him. Breathy, he stared up at her through crescent shaped eyes, cheeks red like apples.

"When did you get so cute?" she asked, plopping one last kiss to his cheek.

Hiruko babbled at her, giving a very earnest answer. Though she couldn't understand most of it, she gave sage nods as if she could. Without a doubt, he would be a talker.

"Takiyasha-san?" an unfamiliar voice interrupted and she turned to look back to see a young girl standing in the doorway. Ayame quirked a brow. "Einosuke-san wishes to have dinner with you and your son."

At that, Ayame blinks were rapid as she swung her gaze back to Hiruko to express her surprise. He giggled and stood up, leaning against her as he did before bouncing on his feet with excitement.

"Message received," she called back to the girl.

.

.

"He's going to be handsome when he grows up," Einosuke noted, watching Hiruko eat. Not all of his teeth had come in yet but Hiruko liked to nibble on the things he was allowed. Later, she would have just enough time to feed him before getting to work.

"Of course, I'm his mother," she said, not hiding her feelings of pride for her son.

Hiruko added in some incomprehensible babble. He had very important things to say.

"I never meet with the kids that my girls have," Einosuke murmured, watching her son with an amused gaze. "Maybe I should do it more often. Kids are cute."

"Are you wanting some of your own?" she asked.

"Bah! Of course not. Could you imagine? I'd be nothing but an indecent father and a criminal in my daughter's eyes. Maybe a hero in my son's. I don't know which terrifies me more."

"Maybe it'd be reversed," Ayame commented. "The things you do, sometimes they save girls from being out on the street starving, where no one would look at her. They give second chances to girls like me who disgraced all of the other opportunities they'd been given in life. All the while you keep them healthy, fed and clothed with money you could have just pocketed. In this way, I think you protect women."

Einosuke looked surprised, eyes wide. "I don't think I've ever received such nice words."

Ayame shrugged. "It's the truth that the world is ugly but at least you can live in it and allow others to as well." She wouldn't be saying this if it was anyone else in the industry, but she didn't admit that outloud.

He laughed. "Don't know if that's a good or bad thing."

"Maybe a bit of both." She grinned.

"Bwoth!" Hiruko echoed.

Einosuke cleared his throat, his expression changing. "Well, I'm glad I can say this to you. I'm glad you've worked so hard this year."

Ayame paused. "Does that mean—?"

"You're our number one," he said, grinning.

She stilled for a moment. Then, with a sigh of relief so heavy it sank her shoulders, she lifted her hands to her face and sobbed.

She'd done it. Ayame had  _done_  it.

* * *

chapter six - end

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Six)
> 
> Jiraiya - 21
> 
> Sakumo - 18
> 
> Ayame - 19
> 
> Hiruko - 1


	7. the man moving on

" _the sea is vast but not empty"_

* * *

"Kaa-chan!" Hiruko rushed to Ayame's side, bumping into her legs and making her step back against Einosuke as a result. He steadied her, hand to her shoulders and she gave him a grateful smile.

"Hiru-chan, don't run inside," she chided him, leaning down to pick him up. Ayame settled him on her hip and turned to Einosuke to finish their conversation, ignoring how Hiruko messed with her hair.

"Have the arrangements for the procession for tomorrow been made?"

"Nearly finished. Some kimono and accessories have yet to arrive, and there are some shinobi we've hired to guard the line that have yet to arrive."

Ayame hummed her understanding.

In red light districts, there was a daily practice, the dochu procession where brothels would show off their best selling women, acting as an advertisement for their establishments. Dressed up in extravagance, heavy makeup and accessories, the chosen oiran would walk down the streets of the district and show themselves off to the clients that gathered in the streets to see.

As the tayu of her brothel, Ayame would be expected to lead the kōshi, girls ranked just beneath her, and for it, she'd wear special geta and walk in a way only tayu were allowed. With swooping motions, she would poise one ankle and drag her geta onto its side, adjust to distribute her weight onto her other foot, and repeat. It was difficult, exhausting, and sometimes she'd sprained her ankles if she twisted it to quick, but it was an important role.

She was the image of Einosuke's brothel.

"I'm glad you hired shinobi," Ayame admitted. "We can't let what happened last week, happen again."

In her head she still got flashes of a man darting in to stab her before she'd tripped on her geta and he'd tripped over her. The girls had screamed, just watching, and the civilian guards rushed in to take him away. All the while, Ayame stared with wide eyes realizing that the man who had done it was someone she could recognize. Kenta. The inheritor of his father's fortune and seeking purpose in his life.

He'd stared at her and though she tried to forget, the thought of it still twisted her insides.

"Of course not. Keeping you safe on your walk is my number one priority—you are my best seller, after all." He gave her a faint smile.

Ayame returned it. "Hopefully we don't have anyone crazy attempt killing me again. You'd be lost without me."

Einosuke inclined his head. "To my very core."

.

.

The dochu procession went on as it always did.

In the front of it were actors to energize the crowd. Donning animal masks and faces of historical figures, they danced and played music, creating the tempo and tone that the rest of the procession would follow. The sounds of drums guiding them, next came the civilian guards—the shinobi had turned down the offer to join—who dressed up in different levels of costume, from simple kimono to characters of their own. They held lanterns and had their faces painted with great detail—as much as the oiran had—walking with the light in their hands swaying.

She and her girls followed after that, wearing intricate and heavy kimono, stylized and decorated with boldness and rich colors in mind. Hiruko once watched her, looked after by Einosuke, and had called her 'kami-kaa-chan', gaping at her transformation into an otherworldly figure. It was this part that was most difficult and strenuous. She stood on geta that took her off the ground by twenty centimeters and did her walk, precarious as it was. She smiled, she bowed her head, she met gazes.

Then, at the end, they came to a stage. Here, the oiran performed. Dances, music, conversation. All an example to what it would be like for the client to come meet them. Afterwards, the procession reversed and the people who had missed their entrance could see their exit.

Everyday they did this.

Ayame was just glad it was over in around three hours and she could spend the rest of her day with Hiruko. Sometimes she took on a client, if they paid enough, but she didn't stress herself out as needlessly as she had in the past. In the brothel, she used her position to look after the girls and Hiruko would join her, the both of them checking in and figuring out the girl's needs and desires. It was an example to what she had become, a manager of sorts while Einosuke kept his role as the owner.

She helped him keep track of the budget, the request books, and medical check up dates. She listened to the girl's issues and their stories, set up clients to their tastes, and kept a watchful eye on their progress. She learned how to speak as if she were older—someone who had lived years beyond what she had and gave advice as she saw fit. She solved problems for the brothel.

She was their nee-san, disregarding her age.

In truth, Ayame enjoyed her line of work, taking immense satisfaction from helping run the business and being able to be with her son more. It wasn't always pretty, or fun, or respectable, but she loved it.

She worked with a smile, knowing it was her own efforts that had taken her further.

* * *

"Beautiful, breath-taking. I have never seen anyone as beautiful as her, honest."

Sakumo was near to tossing a kunai at the chattering chuunin he had joining him on a mission he could have completed alone and in his sleep. Which he wanted to catch up on—sleep had been evading him as it often did this time of year.

January.

"White hair, like snow. Her hairstyle is hard to describe but, but her  _eyes_. They were dark and lined with black. I got to see her up close when she came to send us off after the mission and it wasn't just the makeup making her pretty. Her bare face, hands down, the prettiest girl I've ever seen. I know it was just advertising but she—she gave me a kiss on the cheek!"

"No way."

"I'm not lying."

" _Damn_ , I wish the Hokage would give me a mission like that."

"I'm thinking of going back again. It's a day or so away from Konoha but it's worth the travel."

Sakumo thought of  _her_  and didn't want to. He'd moved on, he had a good girlfriend. Loving, trusting, loyal. Etsuko was nothing like her.

"Where is it?"

Sakumo tried to tune it out but he heard the answer regardless and it stuck in his brain—lingering and settling.

His stomach churned and he tossed out a kunai to stop anything more being discussed.

.

.

Sakumo was just there to check, nothing else.

Just to confirm his doubts, that it was in his head and that Ayame hadn't left to become an oiran of all things. She couldn't be that much of an idiot, even if he could recall her being a bit of one. How long had it been?

Three years.

It had been three years since he'd last seen her and a year since he'd allowed himself to move on.

He thought he was going to be wrong about the hunch. He had no idea that he could be right.

Ayame was as stunning as ever and he recognized her the instant his eyes landed on her at the lead of the procession in the streets of the red light district. She walked, somehow steady despite the way she had to proceed forward. Her legs swept out, her foot resting the side of her tall geta to the ground, and she switched her feet as easily as if she had been doing it for a long time.

She looked like a goddess come to life and his heart beat at the sight of her.

It hurt. It  _hurt._  It wasn't just the emotions that swarmed him—shock, frustration, anger, relief—it was, it was his  _heart_ , beating and ramming against the cage of his ribs. His breath felt short, and even through his mouth, he couldn't get in enough air. He felt furious, he felt glad, he felt  _betrayed_.

Sakumo stared. He stared, and stared, and stared—watching.

She moved under his gaze, no idea he was there. Her eyes full of life. Her posturing as unique to her as she'd always been to him.

Men cheered around her, shouting a name, "Takiyasha!"

Not her name but an alias.

In the three years since he'd last seen her, what happened?  _What brought her to this?_  Did she forget everything?

In the back of head he could still hear her talking about her studies and her goals. She told him so many times, she said to him with honest eyes,  _I want to be a geiko_. She'd taken pride in herself, it was why she had been so unattainable. Ayame couldn't be with him because she had to remain unattached, she couldn't fall in love because her work was her love.

Yet now, to the cheers of all the men around her, she walked.

* * *

"Takiyasha-nee-san, there's a man here to see you. He says he knows you."

"His name?" She glanced up for a brief moment to see a conflicted expression on Sayuri's face.

"He's a Konoha shinobi. He said his name is Sakumo and that you'd know him."

For a second, Ayame didn't hear what was said. Her head was rushing too much for her to make out much more than the name she hadn't heard spoken out loud in a very, very long time. She released a breath and with her rib cage feeling tight, she struggled to get in another one.

"Could you repeat that?" Ayame asked, her voice a whisper.

Sayuri's face twisted in concern. "Should I send him away?"

"No."

Ayame stood like strings were attached to her limbs. She moved from her desk—accounting forgotten—and brushed past Sayuri. Her hands shook, her legs shook, and her footsteps were unsteady. Her skin was covered with raised hairs. Her gorge rose but she fought it off with a clammy hand to her mouth.

Then, she remembered—Hiruko.

Ayame raced to her room, her heart racing as she took off down the halls and bypassed everyone she came across. She couldn't get there fast enough and her lungs burned by the time she did, slamming the door open and rushing in to see Einosuke and Hiruko napping inside.

Einosuke woke up at her entrance and sat up as soon as he saw her face. He turned pale.

"What is it?"

"Hide him. Hide him. Hide him."

Ayame couldn't say anything else—Hiruko was waking up, sensing something was off—and she didn't have any more time to lose.

Einosuke called for her as she turned and left, but she didn't look back.

Ayame stumbled as she attempted to slow down, unsure anymore what was an even pace. She needed to catch her breath. She needed to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Breathe. Breathe. Blink past the black dots. Breathe.  _Breathe._

She began to cry instead. Not a lot but her eyes misted and her breaths turned into moans as she prayed for her panic to ease in time. Ayame rubbed her sleeves over her eyes and as she neared the entrance, she managed to slow her breath and hide the shaking in her legs with somewhat confident steps.

She saw him.

Their eyes met.

She swallowed. He coughed.

"Hello," she managed and smiled. She didn't know how she did it but she was glad to know there was some part of her that wasn't useless.

"What are you doing here?"

She raised a brow. "Some things don't change."

"You have."

"I had to. No one stays young and immature forever. I just grew up—people do that."

"What are you doing here?" Sakumo repeated.

She watched him. Unlike what she had said, he had changed in his own ways. Physically, he was taller—towered over her—and his facial features were sharper, masculine in comparison to the boyish features she remembered him having. His hair was longer than she remembered it being and his face had the beginnings of laugh lines. When he was older, he'd be a wrinkled old man.

Three years. Three years had turned him into a different man, at least in the cosmetic sense.

She wondered what changes he saw in her.

None good, she assumed.

"I don't have to tell you but if you have to insist, it's because I work here."

" _Why?_  Why did you do this to yourself?"

Sometimes Ayame forgot what the outside world was like, that what she experienced in her everyday life wasn't normal. She forgot how people outside saw her, how they saw the brothels, and how they saw her clients.

He reminded her. He reminded her with his eyes in his look of disappointment and pity.

She reeled back, furious. She'd forgotten how pissed off he made her but he had an easy time of her reminding her of that too.

Ayame kept her tone of voice cold but professional as she asked, "What did I do to myself?"

He worked his jaw and with heavy emphasis, he gestured to what stood around them. "Ruined your future! Lost your dreams to be a geiko! Stopped speaking to your brother! Why? Why did you do this?"

"It's not ruined."

He blinked. "What?"

"It isn't ruined. My life was  _made_  here—by  _me_ , with my own actions, and my own determination. Everything else, all of that was just people handing me a life plan that  _I_ never chose. They gave me opportunities that I never realized were special until I was the stupid little immature girl who lost them and disappointed  _everyone_  who had ever set me up to succeed. And then I realized in coming here, something they forgot—success isn't hand given, it's  _earned."_

Sakumo opened his mouth, held up a hand, then groaned as he beat his face with it.

"You've always been like this. Frustrating and inconsiderate, talking as if you know everything when you clearly don't."

He wasn't wrong but he didn't know—he didn't  _know_.

"Inconsiderate?  _Inconsiderate?_  You were the one who kept following me even when I told you to stop!"

"I clearly remember you telling me to keep doing what I wanted to."

"Thinking that eventually you'd get in your head that I wasn't interested!"

"Then why did you sleep with me?"

Ayame faltered. She sucked in a breath and took a step back. Stalling.

"You were the one who brought me to that place," he reminded her.

"It was for the present you gave me. That's why. I thought you deserved it for the jewelry."

"Fuck off with that," he snapped. He took a step forward and took advantage of her freezing to grab her. "You weren't a whore then. You didn't just give yourself to me just because of that. You  _felt_ something for me. I know it."

"I..." she trailed off and looked away. She couldn't speak with him staring at her. "I didn't know what I felt for you. Everything you did confused me. I didn't understand it, why you kept coming back. I was awful, mean, and I thought you were stupid. I still do. There was nothing redeemable in who I used to be but my face. It was all I had, all I ever was. My face and the nasty personality I had from being spoiled because of it."

She took a breath and braced herself for it—meeting his gaze up so close.

"And you, you were a boy in love with the image of a girl praying at a shrine. Wanting to keep her to yourself, you begged for her to marry you. You wanted to capture who you saw. That beautiful visage, that face bowed in prayer, the girl who looked up in surprise. You wanted what you could have never gotten. Beauty, Sakumo, fades. It doesn't last. What you had for me, could have never lasted."

His hand relaxed and slid off her arm as he stood there, staring, expression pained.

"I wanted it to. I wanted to know more. I stayed because I wanted to know more. Not for your face, but because you were always saying what I least expected. Confusing me, messing with my head. I was always on my toes trying to keep up with you. You were a completely different person to anyone I had ever met. You weren't awful, you were humoring me because you're kind to others and what they feel. I took advantage of that. I'm sorry, I took advantage of you."

"I'm sorry," she echoed, bowing her head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Sakumo hugged her, and as used to it as she was to being embraced, his hold had a special texture she had found nowhere else. He held her like she couldn't break.

"Ayame," he breathed, then pulled away to face her. "Tell me, did you ever love me? At all?" He searched her eyes. She wasn't sure how she looked, wasn't sure what message she was sending him if she remained silent.

"I loved you. I loved the idea of you. A boy who kept visiting a girl and waiting loyally for her to defrost. Like a hero in some sort of folk tale, rescuing her from loneliness. That was it. That was what I saw in you. That was who I loved."

"Me too." He laughed, tears brimming at the edges of his eyes, too much of a shinobi to let them spill. "I loved that lonely, frosted girl."

She exhaled and they both laughed—nerves vanishing and her heart slowing to a pace that she could live with.

Ayame grinned, attempting to change the subject. "I'm told you love someone else now too."

Sakumo blinked. "Who did you hear that from?"

"My brother. You didn't think we'd forget each other forever, did you?"

"Ah, no, just thought he would have taken you from this place."

She shook her head. "He knows I'm happy here. And he knows that I never kept him from being a shinobi when I hated his job too."

Sakumo quirked a tired grin at that. "I'm glad you're happy. You seem to be successful here."

"How did you hear about this place anyway?" she asked, curious.

He turned sheepish. "Ah, teammates were talking about a beautiful oiran with white hair. I came here just to check. I was worried, have been since you told me nothing about your leaving. Not even a goodbye."

Ayame winced and thought of Hiruko and felt her stomach sink a bit. Guilt. She felt guilty for taking Sakumo's chance to be a father—it wasn't as if she hadn't realized when she first decided to hide it—but she didn't regret it. To regret would be to call it a mistake and she had never seen Hiruko in her life as a mistake.

He would have chances to have other children. On the other hand, Hiruko would be her only one.

"It was personal matters. I didn't want to bother you with it, and I didn't want to keep you attached to me. That was all it was."

"I see."

"I was happy to hear you had moved on. I worried you might be too stupid to."

"Ouch," he said, chuckling. "Yeah, Etsuko is special to me. She's part of why I came here. I wanted to see you, and I wanted to know it was right that I gave up."

Ayame smiled, though it might have been a sad one. "Sometimes married men come to me, not because the want to replace their wives, but because they can't be honest. Tell her about me. Even if you think it might be awkward. She has to know. I don't want you to become someone who can't be honest with your wife."

Sakumo's cheek turned flushed. "She's not my wife yet!"

Ayame laughed at that. "You proposed to me the first time we met! You can't clam up now."

Now he was really beginning to look troubled, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking away. "I know, I know it's just that—"

"You love her. You love her so much that the thought she might say no terrifies you. It's okay to be afraid, that's what true love feels like." Not that she would ever actually know about that for certain.

"I waited because I wanted to see you again. I wanted to know for certain how I felt about you."

Ayame's grin turn wide, to the point that her cheeks hurt. "Did you figure it out, stupid?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling and looking sheepish. "Yeah, I did."

"I'm glad you came," she told him, surprised that it was the truth.

"Me too."

She left her smile there, just long enough for him to return it. She sobered afterwards and reminded herself that she would never see him again— _should_  never see him again.

"You should go though and never come back, promise me. This place isn't for devoted men like you."

He laughed like it was a joke.

"Noted."

Then he left.

She watched him go and disappear. As soon as he was out of sight, she collapsed. Her hands went to her face and her shoulders sunk in exhaustion, she had no energy to move. Her legs were numb and she felt empty.

Einosuke's arrival changed that.

"What the hell happened?" he asked her and she forced herself to look up. "The girls told me you were running like yokai were after you. They thought you lost it."

"It wasn't anything much," she answered, then laughed. "Hiruko's father just stopped by."

"Oh."

"It ended better than I expected but I can't move anymore. I was so scared! But he's moved onto someone else and won't be coming back."

"That's good," Einosuke commented before scooping her off the floor.

"People are gonna think we're in love," she said, batting her lashes and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"At this point, we might as well be married."

Ayame chuckled at that. "If I were born a man, I know you'd find me  _irresistible_."

Einosuke paused and looked at her, expression smoky. "Who's to say I don't already find you that way?" he asked, then kissed her as if full of passion. He pulled back seconds later and raised a brow.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing," he answered.

Ayame kissed him on the cheek. "There's no marriage in the works for either of us, but at least we won't die alone."

"You were always the sweetest to me, Aya. Such loyalty, I'll have to reward you with... giving you your freedom."

It was so sudden, she couldn't even laugh.

"What?" She  _must_  have heard him wrong. Ayame stared.

"Your debt. It's gone. Has been for a while but I was slow to tell you."

"Oh." She frowned at him. "Why? Did you think I would leave?"

"No, I was more afraid you wouldn't. I wasn't sure how I would talk you into it."

"What do you mean?"

"Ayame, you need to think of your future. Of Hiruko's."

She shook her head, confused. "We like it here, both of us. You see how happy he is, you watch him more than anyone else."

Einosuke sighed. "Women stay in this life for too long and they die, they just  _die_ —young. Their health breaks down and no one can help because there's no taking it back, there's no taking back the years of strain it puts onto the body. I'm the son of a dead whore, I saw it happen in front of me and you think I want it to happen to anyone else?"

It clicked into place. Why she didn't see women beyond a certain age in the brothel. Why everyone loved Einosuke so much. Why she loved him so much. In a world where business and ethics stood at odds, he brought them together. He took the debts of girls and had them work, had them grow, he watched over them. He watched over her.

Then he let them go.

"I can't control what you do. I don't want to. If you stayed, I wouldn't fight it. But I'm here because I can't look away from the shit that happens in this place. I'm here because it's all I've known. Ask yourself why is it that  _you're_ here, and if it's a place you want Hiruko to grow up in. He's still young. He still doesn't understand this world and he needs  _you_  to. You're young  _now_ , and you can still be something more.  _Hiruko_  can be something more."

Hiruko. The boy she'd do anything for.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I'll go."

Einosuke smiled, kissed her cheek, and said, "You're my favorite girl. You'll get jealous if I don't say it but it's true. That's why, let's both meet someone we can fall in love with. Let's not be alone. You and I both know it's the worst way to live."

It was a promise.

"Okay," she said again.

"A devoted girl like you doesn't belong in a place like this."

Ayame sobbed at that, covered her face in her hands and gave a soft cry.

"Thank you," she managed to get out.

"Thank you," he returned.

* * *

chapter seven - end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Seven)
> 
> Jiraiya - 23
> 
> Sakumo - 20
> 
> Ayame - 21
> 
> Hiruko - 3


	8. the child she loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language Guide;
> 
> Hon'ne - true sound, used to describe a person's true feelings and thoughts that are contrary to societal ideals or the the requirements of someone's position in society. Private mind.
> 
> Tatemae - built in front (facade), used to describe the front people use to respect the expectations society has. Public mind.

" _food is tastier when shared"_

* * *

When she was all packed up and ready, waiting on Jirai-nii to guide them to Konohagakure, Ayame didn't want to go.

Something in her gut kept twisting and her breathing was strained, her nerves having her so frazzled, the hairs on her arms stood up on end. She kept reaching for Hiruko, who sat babbling with Asoka.

Yesterday she had been so happy, excited—they'd thrown her a celebration party, each of the girls kissing her cheek until the muscles in her face went raw from smiling too big. Tears were shed too, from girls that didn't want her to go, to children who didn't understand why their mothers had gone sad. She'd cried too, seeing all of the faces of people she'd come to love. Children she'd helped take care of, girls she'd coached, knowing she would miss all of them.

When it came time for the clients to come, another party had been launched.

She had seen for the last time, the people she had come to love so much it made her ache to say goodbye. She'd shared her body with them, she'd shared a piece of her life. She'd been given many things in return, quite literally when it came to all the going away gifts she'd received. Careful, Ayame had told none of them where she was heading—Einosuke warned her that love was kind until it turned obsessive.

She had Hiruko to protect, regardless for how she felt about her clients. It gave Ayame a melancholic feeling, knowing she would never see any of them again.

In the end, she'd gone to bed much earlier than she was used to, too tired from having to say goodbye so much.

She'd never found the word to be pretty or nice. It was too difficult to make a farewell sound beautiful—the people who thought it could be, perhaps had never had to say it in all sincerity. She just kept  _crying_. Her nose kept filling with snot, her eyes kept spilling tears, and her sobs kept wracking her body.

Ayame had never been a quiet crier—it was why she so rarely let herself do it. But now, it was so hard to control.

Even knowing it was the day of her departure, when she should have been happy at having her dream be fulfilled, she was so full of heartache, Ayame had a hard time not bawling all over again.

"C'mon, where's the smile you had on yesterday?" Einosuke asked, coming to sit beside her, his hand landing on her thigh as he patted her.

"I wasted them all last night," she replied moodily. Sulking. It had been him who told her to go.

"Oh, Aya. Tell me what's wrong," he said, patient as ever. He gave her another pat, and rubbed at her thigh soothingly.

She sighed and realized that she didn't didn't really  _know_  what was wrong. Only that she didn't want to go.

"It's going to be exciting, isn't it? Your brother is coming to get you, Mayumi and Asoka have decided to come with so you won't be alone, and you're all going to a land full of possibilities. You could be any number of things, all at the same time. You know, even I have put thought into one day going to Konoha, there's so much opportunity."

She blinked at him, a bit surprised. "To start a new brothel?" To her knowledge, she worked in the only one he owned, but it wasn't unusual for owners to have more than one. Ayame also worked with his finances—he had plenty ryo to use for establishing a new building.

Einosuke gave her an amused look. "Something like that."

Silence fell upon them.

"I have a dream," Ayame blurted, unsure why.

"Well, what is it?"

"A bookstore. I like books, so I wanted to make one. Because my brother is a novelist, I wanted to fill the store with his books and see for myself how much he sold." Ayame frowned. "He hasn't completed anything yet, but I know he will."

"It's a nice dream, I hope it comes true," Mayumi spoke up, then flushed when Einosuke and Ayame turned to look at her. "Sorry. I know you were speaking privately, but, you know, not so private out here, is it?"

Ayame cracked a smile. "Thank you."

"What if I helped fund it?" Einosuke asked, startling her.

She whipped toward him, eyes wide. "Why though?"

"I like books too," was all he said.

Ayame quirked her brows and looked at Hiruko, who was distracted in a game with Asoka who paid them no attention.

Somehow the suggestion seemed too good to be true, no matter how close she was to Einosuke. She'd feel bad—like a charity case.

"Only if it's something you really want to do," Ayame finally said.

"I think it is."

She wrinkled her nose. "You think?"

"I've never given it much thought, doing work that didn't involve brothels. Actually, that's a lie. I have but then I'd feel guilty, wouldn't I? I can't take much of my attend off this place, but if I just funded you? Well, you'd do most of the work, wouldn't you?"

Not a charity case then.

Ayame grinned. "It'll end up being all of the work," she teased.

"If you give me a job, I'll help," Mayumi offered, her tone joking, but her eyes hopeful.

"Did we all just create a business?" Ayame asked out loud, amazed by this realization.

"I think so. No more 'if's then," Einosuke said. He gave her a boyish smile.

Some knot inside her eased as she deliberated on this. "So, it's not goodbye?"

"No, Aya. I never wanted it to be," he told her, raising his hand up to flick her on the forehead.

Sucking in a breath, she gazed at him with hurt eyes. "I was worried it would be. That's probably what was wrong."

He raised a brow. "Probably?"

No, it was more that that she just didn't want to go. Perhaps because she'd grown too used to life at the brothel. Thinking of any other seemed almost... frightening to her. What would she do without Einosuke? Without a schedule? Without ready meals cooked by those with better skill than her?

She looked away from him and had to ask herself, what was she going to do without  _sex_?

It was the beginning of a realization for her; her time at the brothel had left her warped. She wouldn't know just how much until later. Much later.

"Probably," she repeated.

He might have tried to get more out of her if it wasn't for her brother making a sudden entrance, appearing out of smoke that she waved away from Hiruko before he could start coughing.

"Jirai-nii, you're late," she whined.

He grinned at her. "Sorry, I got ambushed. Woods are dangerous these days."

Ayame frowned. "Will we be safe to travel?"

"No worries. I brought my teammates with me!"

A blink later, a blonde woman appeared with another man, whose striking eyes seemed to bore through her. She placed a protective hand on Hiruko's shoulder, a bit more nervous than she had been previously.

"This is Tsunade, and that one is Orochimaru."

" _Her_ , this is your sister?" Tsunade regarded Ayame with wide eyes. "But how!? She's so pretty, and you're so  _you_."

Ayame took offense to that in her brother's place, and replied in a defensive tone, "He's handsome in his own ways."

She was blinked owlishly at.

" _How_?" Tsunade asked.

"He's a considerate man who cares a lot about his friends and family. What more could you ask of in a person?"

"Maybe that he be less of a pervert, to start."

Ayame scowled at that.

"Hey, hey, hey." Jirai-nii made pacifying motions, smiling and laughing to elevate the mood. Hiruko joined in with his uncle, giggling. "We should get going. Daylight is wasting!"

Ayame relented her anger, but only because Jirai-nii was insistent upon it.

* * *

Konoha was a terrifying place, the biggest village she'd ever been to, filled with people, noise, scents, and  _heat_. She was kind of glad for it.

No way she'd ever run into Sakumo here, unless her luck was bad, and even then, it would be a wonder how he'd been able to spot her with so many civilians wandering about. She made a note to hide her eye-catching hair with a hat if she got paranoid.

"Thank you, Jiraiya-san," Mayumi was saying as they walked towards his home. "It means a lot that you're willing to put us up for a while."

"Of course," he replied warmly, looking at ease with Asoka climbed up onto his shoulders and Hiruko asleep in his arms. Jirai-nii really would make for a good father. It made Ayame all the more frustrated by Tsunade, who had seemed to hold a distaste for him.

Jirai-nii had just explained that was just how she was when Ayame tried to complain about it.

But it failed to make sense to her. How could anyone dislike her brother so nonchalantly? He was... He was an amazing shinobi! Or would be, soon enough. He was cool enough already in her eyes.

"The coolest," she whispered under her breath.

It made Ayame a bit curious though. What even made for a strong, respected shinobi? The more she thought about it, the more she realized she didn't know much about the culture. She knew the reasons why they existed, and how important their roles were in society, but it had always seemed so separate from her unless it involved Jirai-nii.

She snuck a glance at Hiruko in his arms. Would he want to be a shinobi? To be like his uncle? To unknowingly take after his father?

The tightening in her stomach was back, making her feel ill. She knew what it was caused by though; the guilt. It had to be. Each time she thought about Hiruko having a dad—a thought she worked very hard not to think about—it returned, that twisting sensation in her stomach.

Being in Konoha only seemed to exacerbate this reaction in her.

Ayame knew it was wrong of her to keep Hiruko to herself and not inform Sakumo, but she'd also made the bed herself. If,  _when_ , the time came for it, she'd lie in it too.

A small part of her was already preparing for when the truth would be discovered, especially if her son wanted to become a shinobi. (Wasn't Hiruko beginning to take more and more after his father each day?) Nevertheless, each time she looked at her son, she was overwhelmed with the feeling of security in her choices.

Ayame lied originally so that she may keep her child and be able to raise him herself. She would never regret that choice,  _ever_. It would be the greatest misery to her, if it ever came to be that she couldn't see her son.

Her self from three years ago knew that already.

"Jirai-nii, hand him over," she murmured and despite the exhaustion her body had taken on during their traveling, she accepted Hiruko's weight readily. He murmured in his sleep, shifting to press his cheek against her shoulders.

Ayame ran a hand through his hair and everything in her world felt right as rain.

* * *

A month into her adaptation to Konoha civilian living, Ayame was getting the sense she wasn't cut out for it like she'd hoped to be.

"I can't even cook him a  _meal_ , what good am I as a  _mother_?" Ayame lamented, glaring at the stove and the charred remains of her latest attempts at cooking. What a waste of perfectly good ingredients!

Mayumi giggled. "It's fine, it's fine. I made miso soup, and I can grill us some fish. The meal is not ruined." She slid a glance at the stove, bursting into another bout of giggles. "Though you really should have known better not to turn the heat up so high!"

Ayame sighed, masking her wails of despair. "I don't understand. I'm usually good at everything I put my mind to," Ayame mumbled, wondering if she'd ruined the pan.

"It's because you're too impatient."

Ayame's back stiffened at the pinpoint assessment. "Mayu, stop bullying me," she said with a pout.

Mayumi's grin turned devilish. "Bullying? I see how it is. So you  _don't_  want me to help you fix your cooking mistakes?"

Ayame began to panic. "I didn't mean to say  _that_."

"Ah? Then what did you really mean to say?"

Ayame bowed her head, knowing when a loss was a loss. "Please instruct me, Mayu-chan."

She giggled. "Of course, but only because I'm so benevolent."

The two of them went about in the kitchen, Ayame cleaning up as they went. It was the only thing she'd proven to be capable of, if only for the fact she used to be a shikomi girl, cleaning the okiya the girls lived in when she was younger.

Lately, perhaps because she was living in a place so different to any other she'd ever been, her thoughts had been straying to her time at the okiya she grew up in. She thought a lot about her childhood, about all the things that used to make her happy. All the things she used to think she needed to work hard for.

The home she was staying in was her brother's, and though she'd always known, it was another matter entirely realizing how differently he lived. It saddened her to think about all the differences between them, the separation that couldn't have been helped.

Sometimes, she longed to feel an instrument again, or to dance. Music used to be the outlet she'd used to cope with the world and yet here she was, reliant on her brother as she worked to get on her feet. Parts of her wanted to try finding a way back into the geiko life she'd left behind.

If she closed her eyes and the room was quiet enough, sometimes Ayame could return to those days. She missed them more often than she cared to admit.

She wondered how Chizumi was doing. How all the girls were doing.

"Ne, Mayumi-chan, how do you like it here?"

A blink.

"Eh? So sudden," she said, pausing. Quiet filled the air as she thought, still flitting about in the kitchen like a moth searching for the light. Finally, she turned to Ayame and had an expression mixing that of a smile and a grimace.

"Honestly? Sometimes I miss the brothel... and Asoka has been asking me when we'll be going home, like she isn't all that happy to be in your brother's cramped apartment. Who can blame her? Even I feel like a leech at times. But well, what's past is past and we have the future to look forward to. We just have to work hard like we always have to make it worth it. After all, it's wrong to grow complacent before we've reached our success, isn't it?"

Success. It was something Ayame felt she'd attained at the brothel but that had obviously fallen through.

So what was she supposed to do now? Her debts were paid, and Jirai-nii himself had invited her to stay with him permanently, so what else could she do with herself? The bookstore was something she'd taken on figuring the logistics for lately but more and more, it felt like an undertaking that was likely to take years to set up. While she understood the money side of business, she knew very little of what it took to get approved within a hidden village. There was a lot she needed to learn to get it up in there air for the future.

The future. It was something vague that made her apprehensive. Ayame had hopes that eventually she'd have the bookstore up and running, that she could get a place much bigger to comfortably suit everyone, enroll her son in a good school, and live her life supporting him. Yet, when she thought being able to have it all, she had this sick feeling in her gut like she would somehow mess it all up.

Somehow, she knew she'd fuck it all up and she didn't know how to cope with that realization. Ayame hated herself sometimes, just knowing how many shortcomings she had; a self-centered personality, an ego with an inflated sense of pride, and decision making skills that had already proven to get her into situations not exactly easy to get out of.

And still, even after all this time trying to become more self-reliant, less of a brat to be looked after, she had to rely on her big brother. It didn't sit right with her. Not right at all.

Further beyond that—what the hell was she going to do about Sakumo!?

"What's gotten into you?" Mayumi asked but she didn't have an answer to that.

"Mayumi, do you think I should tell Hiruko's father about him?" Ayame asked, her thoughts turning contemplative. "He lives here in Konoha, so it wouldn't mean Hiruko would have to be taken from me like when I had to live in the brothel. It could be good, right? He needs a dad."

Ayame, never having had one, perhaps dismissed too much the role of a father. But Jirai-nii and Einosuke both, hadn't they gone to show how much Hiruko blossomed under their guidance? She just wanted her son to be happy—she wasn't above groveling for forgiveness in her deceit if it meant Sakumo could be involved in his son's life. If it meant Hiruko could be happier.

"Asoka's father was a shinobi too," Mayumi murmured, her gaze thoughtful. "He died, last I heard. Never planned for the two to meet anyway. He hadn't been nice to me. So, I have to ask, was Hiruko's father nice to you?"

Ayame thought about how aggravated he made her but still couldn't lie. Pouting childishly, she admitted the truth, "Yes."

Mayumi's smile was hesitant. "Well, then I say you should go for it. Hiruko-chan will be happier in the long run, knowing both of the people that brought him into this world."

To that, Ayame could see no reason to disagree.

.

.

"It's the birthday boy! Good morning!" Ayame cheered, rushing to swoop Hiruko into her arms as he sleepily stepped out of his room. She kissed his cheeks, hearing his delighted laughter fill the air. "You're  _four_  today!"

"Four? I am?" he asked, and it was a marvel to hear his cute voice speaking with such clear enunciation. Asoka really was a good girl to be so diligent in her teachings.

"It's February twelfth, your birthday," Ayame explained, kissing his cheeks again before cradling him against her chest. "It's a celebration of the day you came into the world and became my son."

"Birthday," he echoed, dark eyes shining. She combed a hand through his hair, fond of his bedhead.

His ugly days were well behind him and Ayame adored the cuteness while worrying that one day his looks might get him into trouble. She was already practicing her lectures in her head for the days he entered into his teens and he became autonomous enough to make his own choices. For her, she didn't think she'd ever be prepared.

What was she going to do if he became too much like his father, proposing to strangers like he wouldn't be mistaken for a creeper? She worried, perhaps too much and unnecessarily.

"Where's Uncle?" Hiruko asked, placing a hand to her nose.

"He's away on a mission, but he said he'll bring back lots of presents for you."

He deflated, a pout drawing onto his lips. "Eino?"

She forced a smile. Somehow, it served as yet another reminder that there should have been another man he asked after.

"He has work too, I'm sorry," Ayame said, trying not to set herself into panic. She set him down, retrieving the mail she'd carried in. "Eino-chan sent a letter for you that we can read together and several of the girls sent some too. You're  _very_  popular."

Hiruko stumbled after her, his hands clinging to her skirts. With a big smile, he said, "Like you!"

She snorted, ruffling his soft hair. "Only by a certain sort, but sure."

He giggled, perhaps not understanding a word she just said.

Ayame still wasn't entirely sure what went on in his head yet, but for a four year old, he seemed much older in the times he wasn't trying to act cute for her.

"Ne, Hiru-chan, do you know what an otou-san is?" Ayame asked, kneeling beside him as they settled on the floor by a low table, breakfast laid out in a place he could easily access.

Hiruko picked at his rice, using the chopsticks she'd set out for him. "Otou-san? Aso-chan said before that otou-san's are like another okaa-san."

"Mmhmm." She picked off a piece of rice that had gotten stuck to his chin, eating it in an attempt not to psyche herself into a panic attack. Why did thinking about Sakumo make her so nervous!?

"Did Kaa-chan not know what an otou-san is?" Hiruko asked, giggling.

"Eh? Kaa-chan knew, she knew," Ayame said quickly before peering intently at his face. His following giggle was as clear as a bell. "I just wanted to know if you'd want an otou-san. Do you?" Ah, why did her voice tremble asking something so innocent?

"Hmmmmmm," Hiruko drew the sound out further on as he crossed his arms over his stomach and closed his eyes to think. At times she'd wondered where he'd picked up such a peculiar habit. Now, she could see Sakumo posing in the same way.

His son—of course, he'd take after him in some ways, right?

"Hiru-chan?" Ayame prompted, pouting as she nudged him. As nervous as she was to hear his answer, her impatience knew no bounds.

"I have you already!" Hiruko declared finally, flopping back to lay on his back. His dark eyes stared back at her and his grin, like that of an excited puppy, was just as broad as ever.

"What does that mean?" Ayame mumbled, almost a bit disappointed despite the thrill of happiness that ran through her.

"I don't wan 'nother okaa-san!"

"Why?"

"Two okaa-san's would make going outside  _impossible_!"

Despite herself, she began to laugh. Perhaps she took mothering him too far sometimes.

"Hiru-chan," she began, trying to find the words to explain it right. "An otou-san would be someone more like Eino-chan and Jirai-nii. He'd be a man that would look after you, but not in the way I do. You can play games with him, and I'd sure he'd play along, teaching you things you never could learn from me. Are you sure you don't want to meet your otou-san?"

His lower lip stuck out as his eyes closed again in thought. Then, with a smile, he opened his eyes, the mischievous glint back as if it had never left. He nodded as he sat up, getting back to eating his meal.

Guess that answered that.

Somehow, she found a sense of relief pouring over her instead, rather than the anxiety she thought would swarm her. It was small consolation to what she knew she'd end up having to do.

Apologize.

* * *

Sometimes she thought she'd go insane with the cravings that haunted her at nights. Like some got an unhealthy fixation with alcohol, she perhaps had grown too dependent on the sensations of sex, on how relieving it could be for stress.

She had no one to do naughty things with, and the longer she went without, the more torturous it became. Ah, she was beginning to hate herself even more than she already did.

"I'm too dramatic," she muttered, trying to get back to filling out paperwork for the bookstore. Ayame was too easily distracted with no one to talk to. On her own, it was just her and her increasingly mopey thoughts.

She wondered if Mayumi had similar struggles but had grown too shy to ask. Being outside of the brothel had brought changes in her that she hadn't been expecting. There, women didn't always cover their skin up and they spoke openly, more as if they were discussing the weather rather than about techniques to increase pleasure through fellatio.

But in Konoha, out where people were reserved and polite, where honne and tatemae were at odds in society, Ayame was mal-adjusted to the real world. It was shock she hadn't been expecting to experience; hadn't she been a geiko in training? Shouldn't she understand the world better?

"Ahhhh," Ayama groaned, deciding then and there that the paperwork wouldn't be getting done any time soon with her mind wandering back towards fellatio.

She leaned back from the desk, glancing at Hiruko's sleeping form curled up against Asoka's, and sighed. Mayumi looked up from the book she was using to learn how to read and raised a brow.

"Anything wrong?"

"I think I'm going to go out for a bit. I've been getting restless. Do you mind watching Hiruko-chan?"

"They're asleep anyway," Mayumi pointed out with a small smile that belied worried eyes. "Don't be gone too long, you're brother is supposed to return today."

"Right, right," Ayame muttered, standing up and massaging the muscles that had grown increasingly sore.

She had no plans to go very far, not even in search of the sex she craved. Rather, she was just trying to escape the sense of shame that was beginning to ride her emotions. As if she needed to feel guilty for wanting something perfectly natural.

Ayame just had to be patient, maybe for a guy that she could move on with. Someone she could actually say yes to marriage.

She laughed as she bundled up in layers for the cold that lingered in what should be the last month of winter. Her, getting married? After everything?

It didn't sit right with her, the idea of marriage. At this point, how could she give herself to only one person? She began to think of Sakumo, who her mind always drifted to when it came to the matter of marriage. How could it not, with all the times he'd proposed to her?

It was as she was thinking this, heading towards the closest convenience store, that she saw him.

It was by complete accident, ironically just a little before Jirai-nii would be home for her to ask for an arranged meeting.

This though, it couldn't be counted as a meeting; he never even saw her watching him. It was the one thing she was grateful for in the seconds that passed with her staring, stupefied.

She'd known Sakumo had moved on but seeing was believing.

He looked so happy, his head tilted back to laugh, a girl in his arms. She looked so  _in love_ , soft expression making lovely features breathtaking. When Sakumo gazed back, he mirrored her expression, the weariness he had the last time Ayame saw him completely erased. He looked young again, like the boy she used to know.

They were out in the open enjoying themselves, and the sight was so perfect, Ayame realized two things at once.

She couldn't tell Sakumo about Hiruko, and she would never be able to forget the look on that woman's face.

The base, jealous side of Ayame muttered with grit teeth, "I'm still prettier than her."

It wasn't true, and she knew it. She also knew that it didn't  _matter_.

What had she learned in all her time at the brothel? Relationships had been broken for far less, with love much greater growing flimsy in the face of a challenge. What would a kid in his life do for him?

So it didn't  _matter_  if she was prettier. (God, she hated herself.)

What did matter was Sakumo being able to be happy in a life he chose, with the woman he loved. It would just ruin things for him, ruin what could be a happy family. Ayame knew there needed to be more of those in the world.

It was greedy of her to try and take Sakumo from that uncomplicated life. It was greedy of her not to tell him he had a son. Both were true, and yet both conflicted with the other. Either way, she was a terrible girl. What it came down to was the chance that Sakumo would be happier not having to fit himself into two families.

She knew what her own choice would have to be.

In this world, where orphans were common and many didn't even know the names of their parents, like her, she would have to be enough for her son.

He wouldn't grow up lonely. He'd have her, and his uncle, and Mayumi, and Asoka, and Einosuke. He'd have a  _family_ , even without a father.

Ayame had to turn away from the couple, pressing her clasped hands over her mouth.

"It's fine. Hiruko is  _my_  family. He has his with her, and he'll have a chance for plenty of children without needing my son. It's fine, because Hiruko will be all I ever have. It's fine."

She went home whispering these things to herself, trying to understand herself but failing.

She went home not knowing about the tears streaming down her face.

She went home with the acute need to hold Hiruko.

"What's wrong?" he asked as soon as she kneeled beside him, leaning into the arm she latched around him. She pressed a finger to his lips and gently sushed him as she lifted him up and walked out of the room that contained a sleeping Mayumi and Asoka.

Ayame brought him into Jirai-nii's bedroom, sat him on the bed, and met his gaze earnestly.

"Your mother is an idiot. Let's hope you take more after your father," Ayame said, lacing each word with sincereness. Then, recalling how much of an idiot  _he_  was too, she began to sob. "Both of your parents are idiots, I'm so sorry, Hiru-chan!"

"I don't get it. Are you sad? Don't cry," Hiruko mumbled and wiped at her tears, the concern on his face the only thing that could have saved her. It took her a minute but after a few sniffles, she managed to calm down long enough to clear her vision. She smiled, leaned in to kiss his forehead, pressing hers to his.

"Not sad. I'm happy, because I love you sooooooooo much," Ayame informed him, making a play to kiss every inch of his face. He giggled and made passive attempts to fend her off, but it only made her start tickling him, just so his laughter could continue to fill the air.

Her baby was growing up—already four!—and while she was excited for the future, a small part of her would always want him to stay this way, her boy to love and protect no matter what.

She was sorry to him, so sorry that she failed him.

* * *

chapter eight - end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Eight)
> 
> Jiraiya - 24
> 
> Sakumo - 21
> 
> Ayame - 22
> 
> Hiruko - 3-4


	9. the child he loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check this story out on fanfiction, as the quickest updates will be there. (I literally didn't post chapter 3-9 until today on here.)

" _a frog can be busy too"_

* * *

Sakumo was more excited than he'd ever been in his life to hear the news that he was having a child.

Etsuko's eyes gleamed with tears, her hands lifting to cover her mouth as she covered the broad grin she had pulling at her lips.

"You're for real?" He had to ask, just to be sure it wasn't a prank. He had to be sure before he released the crowing sound building up within him.

She nodded, laughing and it sounded like she was singing with that lovely voice of hers. He couldn't help himself—he reached his arms around her waist and swung her around.

Etsuko's laughter grew breathy as she slapped at his shoulders, giggling as she grinned at him. "Stop, stop, I'm pregnant! You shouldn't toss around a pregnant woman so haphazardly, y'know."

Sakumo set her down immediately, more nervous than he thought he'd be. "Pregnant," he echoed. Ah, the word sounded like magic to his ears. He had it all now, didn't he? A beautiful wife, a child on the way, success in his missions and respect from his colleagues. He almost wanted to cry, overwhelmed in the reality of it.

"Yes, pregnant," Etsuko said decisively, her expression soft as she regarded him.

Like the wind, he could feel her love emanating off of her and he knew they were unseen waves he was sending back ten fold. Sakumo reached out to tuck a stray hair back behind her ear.

"Thank you for having said yes," he whispered, leaning in to kiss her. Once, twice, a third time that deepened.

She pulled away panting. "Thank you for having asked at all."

* * *

"Einosuke!" Ayame crowed excitedly and though it was causing a scene in front of a few strangers, she launched herself into his awaiting arms with glad laughter.

"How's my favorite girl been?" he asked, grinning as she kissed his cheek.

"Hopeless without you," she declared. "You?"

"Much the same." He slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a cursory glance over, his brows notching upwards. "Trying out a new fashion trend?"

"Doesn't it suit me?" Ayame's smile turned broader, pulling away to twirl in the knee-length peach skirt she'd put on that morning.

"The skirt suits you just fine, but it's the hair I'm surprised by!" Einosuke lifted a hand up to touch at the ends of her hair, his hand brushing against her shoulder as a result. "Aya-chan, did something awful happen? Why'd you chop such a pretty thing off?"

"Told you I've been hopeless," she joked, shyly fingering her newly shortened hair.

Ayame kind of regretted cutting it all off—she'd been growing the damn thing for her entire life!—but in many ways, she'd experienced a freedom and unburdening of stress that she had sorely been in need of.

Cliche as it was, she felt newer than she had been before. Happier, more carefree. Only because she'd accepted her lot in life and the inevitability of it all crashing without a moment's notice.

Mayumi had said it best; why spend minutes worrying when she could be  _doing_  something instead?

So doing something she was. Like cutting her hair, finishing up with necessary paperwork, going on meetings with realtors for lots and empty buildings she could make a bookstore out of. Better yet, she'd been taking Hiruko out into the village even more often, much to his utter joy.

He was still working on getting her to leave him alone when he wanted to go play with other kids alone, but no way was that happening without her being close enough to keep an eye on him.

Which was why, "I found a place for the store. Right across from a park frequented by civilian kids and their parents. It could be a marketing tactic even; while the kids play, the parents can pick out a book to pass the time. I was thinking we could even stock up on art supplies, have a section for the kids. Oh! And Mayumi wanted to ask about us possibly incorporating a place for tea. Not exactly for ceremonies—though I can serve as well as any geiko if needed—but it'd be more as something to relax with. A place of peace and tranquility, quiet in the land of books—how's that for marketing? We could put that on an ad—"

Einosuke laughed, jostling her as he took her by forearm. "Aya-chan, first let's find some tea at your place before we get into discussing the details. I've been looking forward to seeing Hiruko-kun after all."

"Chan. He isn't old enough to be addressed any other way," Ayame corrected, relenting as she lead him down the road.

"How has Hiruko- _chan_  been? Has he adjusted to the village lifestyle."

"Well, he still complains about not getting to see you but he's still a child and forgets easily enough. For now, he's still too excited about getting to stay with his uncle and having more time to spend with me. Though, lately, that realization makes him aware that maybe he  _doesn't_  want to spend time with his mother, because that means rules and he wants to break all of them. It's only with me too. He's so polite with Mayu-chan and Aso-chan, but when it comes to his own mother, he likes to play up his antics and act cute. It's too bad it mostly just makes me laugh, which makes me worried he isn't getting disciplined enough."

Ayame paused, perplexed by how much she had spewed out of her mouth without thinking.

Einosuke looked at her, bemused. "Haven't had many to talk to, have you?"

"You're so sharp!"

"Well, it's to be expected. You're still new to the village and I can't imagine it being easy to assimilate when you've only known a certain way of living."

"I suppose. I'm just hoping the bookstore will allow me to meet new people.  _Hopefully_ , a few will be good-looking men who don't mind messing around in the back with me."

Einosuke snorted. "Really?"

She grinned cheekily. "I want to be adored again. Besides, you told me to meet someone, so I'm going to try."

"Ah, this is the Aya-chan I have been missing," he noted, his eyes twinkling.

"So? Have  _you_  met anyone yet?"

"Well, given my limited pool, it's not as easy as you might think to find a man who isn't just in it to be experimental."

"Tch. No one good, huh?"

"No one good," he agreed.

"At this rate, we really will just have to marry each other," she noted thoughtfully.

"Born to a whore, married to a whore—almost poetic."

She snickered at that. "Retired whore, remember? I'm about to become a manager at a bookstore. I'm a perfectly respectable woman now."

"Says the woman who knows just how to tickle a man's balls into ejaculation and amassed such a following, I still get people begging for your return."

"Ooh, really?" Ayame grinned, pleased to hear this.

"Some have tried to pay me a quantifiable sum to beg your return," he said dryly and with a wink.

"Well," she began, setting up the stairs that would lead to Jirai-nii's apartment, "that isn't going to happen. I'm never going back." Even if she did still miss it, dreaming of those long passed nights, wanting.

Some part of her really was hoping to meet a nice book-interested customer that she could get to nail her somehow, but that wasn't very proper to discuss out loud. Wasn't very proper to think about either. It made her feel rather two-faced, having to bend to the expectations of others.

"I'm happy to hear that," Einosuke murmured, following after her as she opened the door.

Hiruko rounded the corner, a big grin on his face. "Eino! Eino!" He collided with Einosuke's knees, pressing his face into his robes before pulling back with arms raised in an obvious request to be held.

"Hello there, Hiru-chan," Einosuke greeted, lifting Hiruko up into his arms and giving a kiss to his forehead. "Have you been a good boy for your mother?"

"The best!"

"Really?"

A sage nod.

Ayame rolled her eyes at that. "He got into the cupboards this morning and made a mess of the pantry in search of sweets. I don't even know how he got up so high!"

"Kaa-chan laughed!" Hiruko cried, as if that exonerated him of fault.

"How did you get up so high? Climbing?" Einosuke asked, always the one more curious after Hiruko's methodology. Ayame was usually too distracted with the 'why' he did something, than the 'how'.

"I jumped," Hiruko answered, his tone nonchalant.

Ayame frowned. "Jumped? Like, up and down?"

"Up and down, onto the counter, onto the shelf," Hiruko explained slowly, expression scrunching. "Jumping!"

"Ah! Did you beg your uncle into teaching you something he shouldn't have?" Ayame asked, worried he could have gotten himself hurt and frustrated that she hadn't thought to ask like Einosuke had.

"I'm going to be a shinobi," Hiruko declared. "It's practice!"

Ayame yelped, clasping a hand over her mouth to soften the sound of her shock. It was too soon! She didn't want to think of him training to do something so dangerous, especially not before he reached school age. She was supposed to have another year to adapt to the idea of this possibility!

"Aya-chan, aren't you going to offer me something to drink?" Einosuke asked, interrupting the buzz of her thoughts.

"R-right. Tea?"

"Orange juice!" Hiruko said.

"I'll take the same actually. Been a while since I had some."

"Hiru-chan? Can you lead Eino-chan into the living room?"

"Yes!"

Ayame fled to the kitchen, getting the serving tray prepared with three glasses of orange juice. She just barely withheld the temptation to add something extra to her drink that might have soothed her stress levels. She was trying as hard as she could not to replace one addiction with another—the temptation was there all the same.

"Einosuke arrived?" Mayumi asked, her voice tapering off into a yawn. Ayame turned to see her scratch at her scalp, messy hair still uncombed.

"Yes. Did we wake you? Sorry..."

Mayumi waved her off. "It's fine. I'm sorry I wasn't up watching Hiruko when you were out of the house."

Ayame paused to refocus her gaze, taking in the distinct bags under her eyes. "Have you been doing okay lately? Seems you're always exhausted. Y'know, you didn't have to accept that job so quickly. The bookstore will be up and running before you know it, then you'll just have to quit."

Mayumi shrugged her shoulders. "It's not work. It's something..." Her cheeks reddened.

Ayame ducked in and couldn't stop herself from asking in a whisper, "Is it the sex cravings?"

"You know?" Mayumi's eyes went wide, and she lifted a hand to her mortified expression.

"I get them too," Ayame said soothingly.

"I'm tired of them. I thought I was finished with all that kind of stuff when we left the brothel."

"It's to be expected. Our bodies adapted to a certain norm, and now we just have to adapt again."

"It's hard," Mayumi grumbled, her expression dark.

Ayame looked at her, a bit perplexed. "Just seduce my brother. You can do that, can't you?" She swept a glance over Mayumi's form and nodded, satisfied. "You're his type."

"Your br-brother!" she sputtered. Mayumi looked horrified. "You'd be alright with that?"

"Mayu-chan," Ayame started, reaching out a hand to her shoulder, "we've been sisters since long ago. Of course I don't mind."

Cheeks reddening even further, Mayumi gave a shake to her head. "I'm off to wake up my daughter. Tell Einosuke-san I'll join the three of you soon."

"Will do!" Ayame didn't watch to see her leave, turning back to the serving tray and confirming that yes, in fact, she didn't need to spike her drink.

Not yet anyway.

* * *

It was months later that Sakumo really began to see the swell of his child in Etsuko's belly. It was more apparent than ever when she was fully clothed, making him beam in happiness.

Excitement and plans for the future began to take up most of his time, especially the latter as he worked on getting the baby's room outfitted with everything a child would need. Etsuko was just as busy, coming home with bags at a time, a growing stock of diapers and clothes pilling up in the closets.

Friends had begun to drop by presents too, making for a whole lot of  _stuff_  that formed into a collection of things that would be useless to a newborn baby but might prove interesting as their kid aged.

Ah, his kid was going to grow up spoiled, having everything it could possibly want.

Already, the room was laid out with a chair for Etsuko to sit up in with the baby, a crib, a mobile that played calming music, and a dresser fully packed with diapers and plenty of nighties for the kid to ruin with puke. It was going to be great.

Sakumo finished with stacking a few of his own things to make room for the baby's things—mostly parenting books he needed to read as soon as possible. Now, all there was to do that day was wait for Etsuko to come home with that belly of hers.

He'd surprise her with having arrived home much earlier from the mission he'd just been on. Just in time to hear news about the baby! If he remembered right, she'd be getting out of an appointment with the doctors.

As if thinking on cue, Etsuko came in through the front door and made her way into the living, jumping when she found him sitting on the couch with a book in hand.

"You're home!" A smile broke out onto her face before she rushed to sit down beside him, her lips kissing his cheek before pulling back, sounding breathless. He raised a brow.

"Any news?"

"It's a boy!" she said, almost loud enough to be a yell.

Sakumo felt his hands go numb, the book slipping from his still fingers as his jaw dropped. She snickered at his reaction.

"That's right, you gotta pay up on that bet of ours," she reminded him tauntingly, going in to kiss his cheek before rising to flounce away.

"And what was it that we bet again?"

"Naming rights," she said with a serene smile.

"And what is it that you'll be naming our son?"

"Why, it'll be Kakashi, of course." As if he should have been able to guess.

With that, she left the room as suddenly as she had come in.

* * *

"What? I have to wait till next year to join Hideki-chan at school?" Hiruko asked in a whine, his hands clinging to Ayame's skirt as she went about in the kitchen.

Three months since his birthday, she'd finally gotten the hang of cooking and had even grown to be a bit addicted to the craft. It made her feel like she had her shit together, being able to make oyako-don or nikujaga without a moment's notice, technique and recipes firmly in hand.

It might have been her coping without sex, but it was making her into that much more of a dependable mother.

And dependable mother's got their kids into the schools they wanted to join.

"School started in April, but you're still only four. It's the five year olds that get to join, so your new friends at the park will just have to wait until your next birthday." She'd had to talk to a few school officials, only to get that answer—a frustrating adventure that left even her a bit disappointed.

She was a bit grateful he still wasn't going to school, but seeing his crestfallen stare made her stomach sink.

"Sorry you weren't born a year earlier. It's my fault, I was a bit stubborn with your father," she said, chopping up carrots.

"Kaa-chan, when is Oji-chan coming home?" Hiruko asked, a pout set onto his lips that she saw only after he tugged at her skirt.

"He'll be home for dinner, why?"

"I want him to teach me more! Hideki-kun said I would be weaker than everyone in the whole world if I didn't practice!"

She snorted. "You are related to two of the strongest shinobi in recent history, of course you won't be weak."

"What does related mean?"

"Family."

"Eh?" His eyes went wide. "I'm re-related to  _two_  strong shinobi?"

"Yes. Your father, and your uncle."

"Who is my father?" he asked, closing his eyes as she went to run her fingers through his hair. "Eino-chan?"

She laughed. "You've never met him, but your father is a very famous man. People call him the  _White Fang_ —sounds cool, doesn't it?"

His mouth opened as an "ooohh" sound slipped out. His grin broadened. "Will I get to meet him?"

Ayame went quiet and debated on this, going back to chopping at the carrots with methodic diligence.

"Kaa-chan?"

"Maybe when you get older."

"Another one of those answers!" Hiruko shook his fist in her skirts, before he pressed his face into her leg. "I want to grow up now!" was his muffled scream.

Laughing, Ayame gently tugged him from her before she leaning down to kiss his forehead. "Be a kid first, okay?"

Still pouting, he shook his head.

"No matter how big you get, you'll always be my baby," she told him, kissing him one last time before adding, "Will you be a grown up and get Mayu-chan and Aso-chan? Dinner will be finished soon."

"Okay," he mumbled and took off from the kitchen with a speed she wouldn't have been able to match.

"He's his father's son," she mused, turning her focus back to preparing the meal.

He surely didn't get that ability of his from her.

* * *

Jiraiya had a predicament he was fond of, but had to somehow get out of.

Mayumi kissed his inner thigh with utter devotion in her eyes and again, he was spellbound. He'd been to a lot of brothels in his day, but none could outmatch a master at the art of sex techniques. He couldn't even count on his hand how many times he'd had that great of sex.

He'd done positions with her that he hadn't even dreamed possible, had some of the best orgasms of his life, and had a compatibility with her body that he salivated over when apart from her too long. That was all great, especially to a pervert.

She wasn't shy with her affections, and though she'd made it abundantly clear they would never be anything more than this deal of theirs, he still enjoyed having her with him all the same.

They didn't talk much as they touched each other, and while he was thinking of all the ways he could possibly write down her beauty, words escaped him. Instead, he was lost in the sounds of her moans and the brush of her tongue against his.

She'd given him enough material to write an entire book about, now that he thought about it.

"I'm buying a bigger house," he told her, minutes after they'd gathered their breath. Sometimes she lingered for pillow talk, other times she left the hotel rooms as fast as she could, rushing to get home to her daughter.

This time, she stilled against him, the hand she was using to stroke his skin stopping on the bulk of his chest. "Why?"

"The apartment is too small for all of us," he pointed out. "Plus, I found a place close to the lot by the park Aya-chan told me about."

"Are you planning for me to stay with you forever?" she asked, a strange note in her voice.

He shrugged. "You're welcome as long as you want to be. My nephew sees your daughter as his sister anyway, and if you left, it'd almost be as if the family was breaking up."

"Are you sure you'd be okay with me being there?" Mayumi asked, shifting to lay on him and meet his eyes. Her fingers went up to trace the markings on his face and before he could answer, she licked his lips. "You'll never find a good woman like this."

"Good woman is subjective," he pointed out.

"No good woman would appreciate a former whore hanging around. People will start to think you're taken if I live with you permanently," she shot back.

He mocked a horrified gasp. "My own sister is a former whore."

She snorted, shaking her head. "Do you never want to find love?"

He chuckled. "I don't know, never gave it much thought. What about you?"

Mayumi smiled. "I think you're lying. I think you've given it so much thought, you've scared yourself out of trying."

"And you're not answering the question yourself because...?"

"I've scared myself out of trying too," she murmured, before silencing his response with another kiss.

This one deepened, and with the skill of her tongue pressing against his, Jiraiya lost his head in pleasure he would have thought exaggerated if someone told him it had come from a kiss.

Ah, it was decided. They'd move into the biggest house he could afford, one with as much privacy as possible.

* * *

"That's the last of it?" Ayame asked no one in particular, watching another genin take off with a loot of boxes from the living room. She walked through the apartment, checking all the rooms, and nodded to herself. "The last of it."

Moving day had come far earlier than she had expected, and much earlier than even the bookstore opening, which was also fast approaching. Big things were happening and she was doing all she could to keep up, all the while appearing fresh and livened as usual.

The still vain part of her was sure to measure how long each of the genin helping looked at her. It appeased her greatly to know she could still draw gazes even outside of wearing makeup. Even better, she could do it under the heat of summer in August.

"I didn't think someone related to that guy could be so pretty!" one of the guys hissed in a whisper to another one and it left her conflicted, but happy.

To her, Jirai-nii was perfectly handsome, but the compliment itself still stuck.

Ayame was preening as she floated out of the apartment, spotting Hiruko on Jirai-nii's shoulders in the distance.

"We're done here!" she called out before jogging up to them, making sure not to trip over the hem of her kimono robe.

"I want dango," Hiruko said as soon as she reached them.

"I want sashimi," she responded, and then looked to Jirai-nii, who shifted his gaze away. When she went to stand more firmly in front of him, he sighed.

"Oi, oi, I'm paying for the house and the genin missions, I don't have the funds for sashimi  _and_  dango right now."

"Here, I thought you had to be rich because of all those missions of yours," she muttered, a bit sour about the fact she felt like she'd been seeing less and less of him lately.

His cheeks reddened on his already red skin. "Aya-chan, how about we have sashimi next month."

"I don't want dango anymore," Hiruko announced. "I want sashimi."

"What?" Jirai-nii's eyes widened. "You can't just change your mind about that!"

"Oji-chan," Hiruko whined, "you told me earlier that I could pick out whatever I wanted, and now you say that I can't?"

Jirai-nii went silent while Ayame went to take Hiruko off his shoulders and balance him on her hip. Together they stared at the shinobi in silence.

"The two of you aren't fair, you know?" Jirai-nii muttered, taking out his frog wallet to count the bills he had, shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Thank you very much, Jirai-nii," Ayame said, grinning as she kissed her son on the cheek. She'd raised a good son for him to have his mother's back where it counted most.

"Thank you, Oji-chan," Hiruko chimed in, playing up his charm with puffy cheeks and a wide-eyed expression. Ah! He was just too cute sometimes.

"I suppose it'll just have to be a family dinner celebrating the move," Jirai-nii muttered, before blinking at Ayame. "Where's Mayumi-chan and the kid?"

"At the sashimi restaurant I told them to wait at," Ayame announced happily.

Hiruko and Ayame both had a good laugh at the expression that made her brother have.

Jirai-nii shook his head in exasperation. "The both of you have me too wrapped up on your fingers."

"I'll treat you to sashimi with my first paycheck, promise," Ayame told him soothingly.

"I'll give you my favorite toy... for an hour," Hiruko offered.

"I'll take your second favorite for a whole day," Jirai-nii bargained.

Hiruko scrunched his face up and after a long moment, nodded. "Not a second too long, got it?"

"Got it," Jirai-nii said grinning.

* * *

At the start of September, Sakumo got it into his head that the birth of his son could come any day now. It warmed him a bit, knowing his birthday would be so close to his own, as if cementing the special bond he already felt.

"He isn't going to arrive with you just staring at my stomach like that," Etsuko informed him dryly, her hand smoothing out the wrinkles in her shirt.

"I keep waking up thinking today will be the day, and when it isn't, I start wondering what's taking him so long. Our son might develop a habit of being late if we aren't careful."

She laughed at that and shook her head with a wry smile. "With you as his father, how could that be?"

"You think I'll be good at it?" Sakumo asked, a bit nervous over the answer. "I was an orphan, I don't know any of the good parenting techniques."

"Oh, dear, you've read  _how_  many books for that now? Stop worrying so much," Etsuko grumbled. "You'll be a great father, I know it."

"I suppose if you  _know_  it."

She smiled. "I do."

"Thanks," he whispered, and absentmindedly went to trace his thumb over the swell of her stomach. "I just want to do right by him."

"You will, you will," she said, with such confidence, he couldn't help but begin to hope.

* * *

Kakashi was born September fifteenth, just as autumn began to set in, the leaves turning colors on the trees outside the window in the hospital. It had been close to evening, after Etsuko had endured painful contractions for the hours that Sakumo spent white-knuckling the side rails of her hospital bed.

It had been her screams that stuck with him and the magical moment of meeting his son for the first time became tinged by it. The sound of her agony...and the despair that soon set in as he was ushered out of the room, it clung to him.

A day later, she passed away due to complications no doctor around could save her from.

And Sakumo became a widowed father of a healthy newborn boy, Kakashi, the baby who looked as if the weight of the world already sat on top of his tiny shoulders.

Or maybe that was just his own projection.

* * *

chapter nine - end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age Guide;
> 
> (In Story - Chapter Nine)
> 
> Jiraiya - 23 (Nov 11)
> 
> Sakumo - 20-21 (Sep 3rd)
> 
> Ayame - 21 (Jan 31st)
> 
> Hiruko - 4 (Feb 12th)
> 
> Kakashi - just born (Sep 15th)


End file.
